None of you know my dad, we're all gone but y'all don't, y'all stop what you doing first of all, go ahead, like, subscribe, follow us on all social media platforms everything including Patreon because Patreon is where you're gonna see our full length interviews after a while and let me tell you, on our YouTube membership, that's where you're gonna see it as well, so y'all don't forget like, subscribe, follow us on all social media platforms, thank you very much in advance Hey man, listen man, we got some guys here today y'all, they done pulled up on me I didn't even expect this to be going down like this man, well you know we scheduled it now, don't trip, but I'm just saying I didn't know if it would happen man, because you know, people tell you stuff sometime and you be like, man I soon can't wait to see this happen if it's gonna happen and man it just, hey the bird just landed, you hear me? Man listen man, I got two esteemed gentlemen on here man from Waco, Texas man, these guys right here man, they go way back like full flash these boys right here is they got extraordinary story that they're sharing with us today man I got my boy David Hudson and Charles Johnson in the building man, what up guys welcome to boss talk 101 What's up boss talk man, you don't watch no boss talk man, I'm coming like you just really watching me man how we doing? Good, good, highly blessed, highly blessed yeah, yeah, so man you know, you guys got extraordinary story and I don't know if y'all have even told it you know, have y'all ever been on a panel together before? No. But thank y'all thank you guys man, so you guys grew up together man Waco is different I ain't gonna lie to y'all, don't get mad at him I used to call it Waco after that stuff happened down there with that crazy guy y'all remember that right, that's what y'all built y'all reputation up at right, that's when it really went down right, so you don't even remember, you wasn't even in the states you from another country, let me go I heard the story and then lately y'all got a little jiggy with some bicycles down there I seen that, I say whoo whoo turn up, do they know where they at? he can go crazy down there so first of all man like how was it growing up in Waco together, how was the temperature like growing up as kids in East Texas I'm from East Texas, you guys out of Waco it's small down there the way kind of like I've lived in Waco before, you know over the summer and stuff like that, but just how was it for as you know during the early 90s you know what I mean even the 80s, you know what I mean, growing up into the 90s how was it there it was it was just like it was in any other city or any other ghetto, any other place you know it was just a small environment so you know you moved around and you did pretty much the same things but it was the same things going on this um, this country had been manipulated all around the board and Waco ain't no different than New York or California, it's just smaller, that's it same stuff going on same common, same block, same things being sold same wrong, same bad same good, same good, you know it's just the same thing it's just we was we were all guys that we knew back then, we were younger a lot of us we grew up bumping heads and now we most of them we are cool, there ain't no problems now it's easy to get over because we like we say we all in one area you know what I'm saying, you gotta keep a problem going on but we gotta see each other which is crazy, like he being nice with bumping heads like it's deep like for real, for real, it cheers me up sometimes like dang, time is something else wow, some of the people that you've seen I know when I was young you know people get shot, you know it was easy you could shoot a person and kind of get away with it back in the day, I mean real like you shoot a dick Mark told me this story where he shot a dude and he had gotten hurt a little bit in the fight they end up at the same hospital, neither one of them was arrested kind of but this is the kind of stuff that happened in the 80's and 90's it was a different world they lived in, we knew somebody was going to get shot and killed on the weekend down there in the country where I'm from it was a juke joint down there called the Chuck Wagon shot out to the Chuck Wagon, little man all them other cash down there matter of fact one of the guys killed his brother there I'll never forget it, stuff like that I can keep going, I got stories he killed his own brother, but he said he didn't do it but we know he did it so this is the kind of stuff and they gonna know when they see it and they're talking about it you know, my daddy got shot in the head I tell that story all the time, the same juke joint down there, my uncle got shot in the back of the head only different, my daddy lived this is, when I came to Dallas I was like, man, they took me to South Dallas I'm like, it's just like where I'm from really just bigger but it's the same thing so I agree with you on that statement that you said earlier same old two step you know what I mean so you guys though, coming up y'all went to high school together in junior high who was the fastest that nigga could run that nigga quick on his feet that nigga would use to run that ball for a back, I wasn't running back that nigga wasn't no Daryl Johnson so I mean, did you play high school ball? I played streets in high school oh you just hustled him back they changed because of the time, the crack era came in let's be real people don't really like to talk about that that was a time, like now we got the Fidenau area the area is Fidenau and they say it's marijuana and all this other stuff but really, Fidenau is the banger right now marijuana and not killing nobody but I'm just saying I'm just saying what's the most popular drug that's the most potent during this day and time and the people are laughing on to it you had also at one time, you had an anthrax era y'all ain't ready for me I'm watching the eras of what's going on so you had these eras well, it was first heroin heroin then it came crack they even had a cocaine era where they were snorting a lot it was real popular for one set every era had a little situation where that drug took over that era but our era was crack right, you know, you get it you whip it up, blow it up you thought you was a man that's what we done when we was young and didn't know no better I can't speak for y'all, I'm just telling you what I went through okay, but as we done this families was torn apart and we had a quick to say today like we won the cause of it man, I'm young for crazy I'd be like these niggas just crack babies you know what I'm saying the ones that's around 30 in under right so you guys and how was the crack era in and I'm gonna break it all the way down in Waco it was like I said the same we on 35 we on out 35 so you know they say Waco is the heart of Texas so you gotta come through there if you're on 35 ain't no way you can get around you can venture out, you're gonna come through Waco though if you're on 35 you can make it out something stays, something look that's how the streets move but you write the crack, I believe at this point until we see other why I believe our era got hit the hardest it was because you could do it and sustain and it was ugly sustaining you see what I'm saying meaning old girl that used to be fine not your crack head and she just turned the crack head so she still look cute to me y'all don't know nothing about that yeah this was a time y'all it's a place right there where she was you never would have thought she would have got on it and you know what she doing in the back of these buildings this happened it was not just one it was but not everybody was taking this stuff the ones who you least expect to take it you're like damn she on it you know what I'm saying it was a lot of people were it was a lot of people affected by that and the one they got affected by you didn't expect that they would have got them a lot of surprises am I right? think about some of these people I'm thinking about it was a lot of surprises you remember when they said it used to be the prom queen and that was in New York it was happening everywhere the drugs they pushed them drugs that was a big thing the government they pushed them all a person that never taken drugs or any of that what was it so hard to say no why was it so hard it was a drug like any other drug either you were selling it or you were using it because it was a thing of the time it's like wearing clothes now if you pay attention everything is pushed on the people and that was drugs was just one of them now it's a different drug being pushed on the people it's always going to be something though they going to come up with something since I've been out I've been wondering do people even still using crack or selling crack and they say yeah for real I thought it was a thing of the past you know they're still hanging around like heroin and teas and loaves did in the early 70s and 80s that's still hanging around but it surprised you when you see somebody come up and get in there like damn I think that was still going on and it'd be some of the ones me coming from the game I knew certain people like damn she's still making this long that's what was dangerous about it was that you made it you could make it a long ways on it and even not get locked up sometime you could just be doing it and going home doing it and how about three four people in the house with you it was I see it had an error too it was like when you were talking about cocaine they say it was it was almost like a designer drug at first and then it kind of morphed into tripling down into the streets and then of course in the poor neighborhood then you cookin' the crack well when crystal meth first kind of came to the forefront actually went even at the forefront yet I know this for a fact it was doctors dentists professionals who was on it and they was up three or four days and then subsequent to that the physical system they started looking like their face was swollen they got little specks right in their face I seen one of them yesterday then they started being visible I just run into one I ain't gonna say no names I probably remember back in the day when we was coming up this cat professional house cars everything he told us he had it one time and couldn't stop let me tell you something my partner told me you know I was hustling back in the days my partner told me he said I said man what it feel like when he did crack he said man it's like we was living in the woods it's like when you hit it like that leaf right there could fall off that tree and when it hit in your mind it go boom I said what I don't want nothing I want to get into you guys the story man last time you was on here you told the story somewhat but he wasn't here I don't think he had even been released yet or if he had he had just got now what I want to talk about that night cause this thing was crazy you end up going to prison how long were you in prison? 23 years I told people 24 might as well say 24 sum it up I always tell people I was in the 23 winners 22 summers wow 23 winners 22 summers cause I went in October got out in October what happened to cause you to even have a run-in with the laws I know it was one night was y'all leaving a football game was y'all just out one of our partners had passed away and it was his birthday and we was all together celebrating his birthday and really on the way home so what really happened was the police actually profiled us and tried to pull us over for an illegal reason okay and so they didn't try they did right they tried cause we didn't stop they tried we stopped when we got ready so where did you guys they chased y'all where did you guys stop down the street from us was it because of safety or was it because y'all was wrong or was it why did we stop there what you mean wrong in the wrong or because they turned the lights on woke up every day wrong back then I get it I did too but I'm just saying when them lights turned on y'all was trying to get away from them so what happened was my partner he was asleep aw he was asleep he was in the back seat he was asleep and one of our other partners was with us so when they lit us up I pulled over at first I pulled over and stopped and it just started raining and then when I pulled over yeah I'm talking about this storm when I pulled over cause it wasn't either one of our cars or whatever vehicles anyway when I pulled over he woke up man what we stopped for I was like man it's the police behind us but you know I had a license and he was like man don't stop okay so in y'all was 1718 17 say don't stop so why did you say don't stop I was sitting back that dirty okay got a tech back there you got cocaine you don't need this you can't stop right here and you didn't know that he had all this stuff can't stop right here you gotta at least get away I ain't got everything on me I gotta get it so when y'all you do end up stopping up from your sister's house what ends up did y'all just break it down to me so we stopped we're still on 35 like a little exit and after that we gone so was it a high speed chase or were you like driving slow or was it like a whole bunch of cops behind you it was a whole bunch of cops but it went high speed we was in the lap just driving it kinda on the cool it kinda to understand it fully it kinda breached the arrogance it stayed the arrogance that we had grown to like we gone get away we ain't worried about we gone get away that's how I started thinking like we gone get away we in South Waco where we from we gone get away just get somewhere where we know we at we just turn out that way so you guys do you get out the car when y'all stop or do you just jump out everybody jump out everybody run so when y'all running you end up getting shot in the back in the front I got shot from the front one time so they shot you multiple times if you running how did they shoot you from the front cause it was police so you are running towards the police now when we stop what we wasn't thinking at was that on the way it's two o'clock in the morning in Waco, Texas on a Thursday night I think it was ain't nothing happening so they calling the police they coming from everywhere so by the time we got right there it's 6m long on the scene by the time we stop but we ain't worried about it we always get away we never get caught we never got caught we always got away but not this night so when we take out running we ain't thinking about it so when we take out running they take out the one that's behind he chased me it's ironic that in court he testified and said he jumped down and left his car in neutral that's how I ended up going to prison for 23 years cause like he said I was fast he wouldn't have caught me I still be running that's my joke I still be running right now if he wouldn't have got his car in neutral and had to jump back in it to stop it from rolling I would still be running right now but he jumped back in his car and that made him go on the street in his car and he cornered me accident it was meant in other words when he cornered you he just came out when he cornered me he jumped out it was a full ball attack it became action it was action from that point on and at that time you had already gotten shot no there ain't no gunshots yet there ain't no gunshots yet it's just him tackling me once he tackled me we rolled he hit me so hard my glasses came off my beeper came up all these things was out of my body beeper glasses had everything cause I wore a hat all the time then too I was just me closed and then when we went to wrestling I got the gun I got the tech on me like always I got it in my pants clip in my pocket I got everything on me cause I ain't going to lose it that's what my mind stayed then I could just buy another gun but I'm thinking I ain't going to lose this one though you're 17 man I ain't going to lose this one ain't going to tell me what might happen tomorrow if I lose this one I need this one so that's how I'm thinking so when he tackled me by the time he filled it they even were running that way kinda to explain to you best I always try to protect them so I'm trying to run away from them cause I know I'm the dirtiest one in the car I know this for a fact they might be dirty but I know they ain't dirty to me so I need to get away from them so I'm running one way they run another way they happen to catch them so he hollering for the law Roger he got a gun that when I realized I know I had the gun now I realized it's on now cause he know I got it cause he felt it he wrestling with me he felt it Roger he got a gun he panicked I don't know that time he was a rookie police it was his first big it was his first big shot wow so he shot you you didn't even pull for your gun at all at all Corbett could say different Corbett could say that I pulled it out but the gunpowder residue if he was nothing on your hands if he was my lawyer then I would never went to prison because the lawyer just let him run me over he let him run me over he fed me to him because of my record I had a whole bunch of cases and they I had just been in the newspaper like a week before that he was a court appointed lawyer he was court appointed but he was a known lawyer his name was Russ Hunt Jr he was a known lawyer and he just fed me to the wolves cause he was court appointed I had another lawyer by the name of Michael what's his name Michael Goins cause I had a name Goins he was going to be a federal prosecutor but he was always fighting hard for people in Waco Hunt was too that's why when I got him and Goins got out of my case cause he took the case as a federal prosecutor I was okay with it but he fed me to him because he beat some other cases and he was lying on me in the end telling people well he got the time cause everybody like man why Charlie get that time he didn't did nothing he like man he got the time he was mugging the jurors just to tell a lie that's how I knew that he fed me to the people there ain't something that is not to me we know he fed me to the people we know he did but you guys was going that night so that was no reason what did you see in the case why you feel like he shouldn't have lost that case he got charged with attempted capital murder on the police office a tech nine with a clip that hold 30 36 rounds 36 rounds it's one bullet that didn't even get ejected spent you don't do that we partners I know you don't have access to 30 rounds and one bullet that gets jammed that means you're not shooting at nobody you understand what I'm saying and it's the police so if you did you know you gotta make a count you understand what I'm saying and on top of that I've seen it like the only thing that's happening when the police officer is tugging you've seen him wrestle by this time that's what I was saying he's running far from each other were you they called him first when they called you they walked you back to the car and you see them struggle exactly how far were you from him by this far is probably what a restroom is you can see it so I'm hearing them tell the police man he's like this though I got a pistol and the police is behind them tugging at him and he goes wow and he says I'm hit this is what the police is by this time it's probably 15 plus police cars in the area so when he says he hits by this time the gun is on the ground and then my politics are running and they lick up the blood I thought they had smoked they shouted me they say 28 times but only 2 an old lady saying me I ran her yard I go by her all the time now after all the years I got a contract with my cleaning company to a restroom right there by where it's happening ironically so I got to ride by her every night I got to ride by her and I'm looking at her like it's businesses right there people move they shut their houses down and it's the house that I ran to the lady she came out yelling y'all gonna kill them y'all gonna kill them because they were shooting like her yard is on the side of the house so I'm on the side of the house that's why they were shooting until her house directly they shooting into the side of the house but she came out the front door and was yelling y'all gonna kill them y'all gonna kill them they just shooting they got on paper and called they said they shot 28 times we think more they say 28 running away from the scene with no weapon the gun already fell out he got it he secured it and put it by his car he said that in court he secured my pistol and put it by his car I still have the clip oh they said that and they still continue to fire after that fact he was a main one shooting transcript you can pull it I would think that they would have messed up the transcript to make it seem look a certain way but that already looked weird the only officer to this day his name Firestone and I got love for him cause he just told the truth he said man only why I shot cause you wouldn't raise your hands but I didn't hear him my drilling running now he said he was right in front of me he shot me in front of the lid he said you wouldn't raise your hands I didn't know if you had none so I didn't want to kill you I shot you in your lid the other guy said he thought he was killing me though the other police don't know he said I thought I was killing him I was doing panic fire that they taught me in the military the one who shot you in the back he shot me twice in your leg the only reason why that happened was because the yard I ran in is up so while he on the ground shooting he think he shoot me in my back but I ran up a hill like so now I'm up higher so his bullets that went in my leg he thought they were going in my back but he was hitting me he really did you lucky you can even walk yes that's true I had a lot of long so where did you get hit you got hit right up under my buttocks and then my thigh in the back and then my thigh in the front wow so they didn't hit you up top no not at all by the grace of god what did they call you on the witness saying number first what did they ask you and what do you feel like what were they trying to accomplish when they was questioning you is what happened before the witness saying so the prosecutor at the time the prosecutors at the time before the trial they called me in like I say there's three of us so before the trial they called me in playing them games you know this is where we know what happened blah blah blah blah blah blah so I'm like okay well since y'all know what happened okay I ain't see y'all there but if y'all know what happened this is what it is you know what I'm saying well I believe so I'm like nah this is what really happened so then they hit me with son do you know what perjury is I'm like nah I don't know what perjury is and they say well it can get you however whatever the sentence was and I'm like so what are you talking about he's speaking we don't want you in the grass Johnson is who we're after if you keep covering for him blah blah blah blah so once again like I said I'm 17 at the time what is the term that you're covering for because you're just telling the truth because I'm telling the truth you gotta think about it that means if he walks then there's a silver suit coming because y'all have shot this man so it's all that other stuff that's going behind the scenes so they're trying to paint the picture so anyways I'm like listen man I don't know what no perjury is but whatever it is hurry up let's go and run it so I can go out here whatever you're talking about if it's going to be some lie I'm going to be lying to help him that's just how I go so it is what it is so then I go out to the office they call me back we apologize we got too confused with Mr. Sutton Sutton which is bull crap so anyways so I was trying to call his lawyer because I'm on bond because at first I was charged with the same thing initially why would they charge you with that when you weren't even y'all in the car you was in the car and they can do that it changed so when you get shot they take you to the hospital you come then they put you in jail once you're in jail we're going to fast forward to court we're going to get on up to the court time did they give you some offers they offered they initially didn't offer anything then they came back and offered 20 because I stayed in court I stayed in jail like 18 months I believe they offered 20 years and then like right before right before I went to trial they came out with like 10 but by then I was like I knew I hadn't done nothing and my mind stayed back then it tripped you out like I raised a lot of youngsters we all were young you know what I'm saying but I was really raising them like one of our partners just went to prison here recently and he was saying the words that I was saying back then now he's been in prison 2-3 times he just was trying to get me to get Dave to take him in the court day like man they going to hang him I ain't going to watch no hanging you know what I'm saying and he's saying the same things to me that I was saying then I say cut it I was dumb back then I thought I knew a lot I didn't know nothing then people going to smoke you and you know today when we say I wake up we're fighting I wasn't saying that back then they gave him life they hooked him up and I was telling him I say man David know what's going on just listen to him he said you cut it you say we're fighting we feel like I'm going to fight he went on coming to you when Dave went to fight with me I was like man he not going to go in there he's not going to get smoked Now he on the L train.  Went into a jury trial, with them saying we're somebody. 12 in a box. We gonna fight. Hold up, let me interject. This 10 year offer in Waco, Texas, attempted capital murder on a police officer and it came with 10. With 10. That's low ball, low ball. Something gotta be wrong. Yeah. That what made me think like, I got him, I got him. Even though I had just had told my parents, I'm like, man, I'm going to prison.  If you'd have filed a suit on them before they filed charges on you, you'd have had a civil suit from the jump. And you had more leverage. You know what I'm saying? But it had got to a point to where my main money source, the person that would help me and anything. My dad, see, I heard you say on a week, y'all had talked to him, talked with him before about how the dads fall out. I ain't got that story. I tell you about a time. I ain't got the story about the dad, the bad dad. I ain't got that one. So your dad was a good dad? Yeah, still is right now. And we're there for him. He wasn't in the house, but he didn't change our relationship at all. So I ain't had that story. I just showed, I'm just proof that you can choose to do wrong or do whatever you want to do and figure out how to do it. Yeah. See, that's what I always ask a lot of people and now I'm coming to the realization of it that a person can come from a good home, mom, dad, whatever, but they choose to be on the street because the street calling, nothing you can say or do can stop that. You can be strong minded, strong-willed and just make a decision at some point in your life. It was wrong going on around me. My parents don't work, they hold like, it wasn't them though. Same thing with him, it wasn't them. But like we said earlier about how to, everything get pushed up onto the streets. Like right now, the culture is to be, I got the thing I say from my Islam and faith, from what I learned about Islam, what I learned about life. I believe that at some point in time, being black was to be wrong. That's how it was looked at. That's how we looked at it because if you was, they said you was a slave back in the slavery day. If you ran, that was a crime.  So that means that to be right, cause they was right in the end, they end up telling them they was right. They did the mass mass, they say, y'all not really slaves. But for the autumn years, you tell the autumn people they was wrong for saying they wasn't a slave. So doing wrong became part of our culture. Doing wrong, going against the law. We bucked the law. My mama don't call no police. She don't believe in that. She's 77 years old. She don't call no police. She don't call me, call my brother, call him. We even need you cause somebody from the mess up. It's going to be that. You know what I'm saying? They ain't going to call no police. She ain't going to do that. She, the police put them at the door, right at that door the other day, looking for somebody. She's like, join the law. Laws are dope. Tell them go on about it business. And my son, they say leave. Cause they're, they looking for somebody. We just don't call the police. It ain't, it's not, the police was originally the clan. We don't call the police. You know what I'm saying? So getting help from those supposed to help you was a wrong in this world with us, with people that look like us. So that's how we came up. And that's just the way it is now. It's the same thing. This a culture for us. No, I'm saying it ain't right. I know that now. When you put 12 in the box, I'm going to get in that courtroom. I'm back in there. You were in there all the time. It's the worst thing to go in that courtroom. I don't like it.  But I never liked going in no day in courtroom. I felt out of place.  I know they don't do something crazy. It ain't sympathy. So it ain't sympathy to win. That's right. So, so tell me how was it just that, when they was walking you into, we're about to, we're about to do this trial. You better go and take this time. I'm gonna give you one more.  What was it all about? To be truthful with you by the end, they didn't want me to take the time. They wanted me out of the streets. They was literally, like they went to my home by my mom and told her, she just passed away like last year. Said, we got the engine out that car. We finna strip it. Man. That's what they told them. We got the engine out the car. We finna strip it now. Meaning him, my homeboy, Willie, T.J., everybody. Floyd, we gon' get them out. We gon' get them out. Dammit, we gon' get them out. We gon' strip the car now. We got the motor. So what did you, when you went in there, you just your first time in trial? My first time being locked up. I ain't been to jail before. I went to prison one time and that was my first time going on 23 years, the first shot. All the crimes only got convicted one time. What did you think when you was gonna try? You thought you was gonna beat it? Yeah, I really did. I really thought I could beat it because I know I didn't do what they were accusing me of. That's my mind state. I didn't do this.   I didn't try to kill him. I tried to get away from him. I never even hit the man.  He put on a good, he put on a good front. I'm gonna show you some things that he did that David had shown me since then. He kept his hands on me, like assuring the jury that I was down whatever he was saying, but he ain't striking nothing. He ain't really fighting. When David go back and looked at all my training, he's like, man, he ain't really done no fighting. He just was a good face in there. He didn't really do no fighting. He didn't object to anything. They had me stand up on the stand. He let the DA put me on the stand for like 10 minutes with the gun in my pants. Huh? I had the gun in my pants. And then the DA said, then he said, you see how comfortable he is with the gun? So he proved, like he packed the gun out, which I did, but he proved it to the jurors. Like he got that big old gun all the time. We're talking to tech like this. It's all about visuals. It's all about visuals. So the jury they got, he told the DA told the jury out the gate, like that man right there, that ain't him. He pulled a picture of me fresh out leaving the club when they pulled us over one night. My eyes read her everywhere. You know, it's one of them pictures. He said, this him right here. This Charles Johnson, this is him right here. That ain't Charles Johnson because I'm waved up, her low, suit on, that ain't him. This him. So it's all about the visuals, like you said. It's all about the visuals. So how long did y'all, your trial last? Like three days. Three days you was in trial. That's quick. They come back with a guilty verdict. And it took them, if they came back with a guilty verdict fast, it only took them like 30 minutes to an hour to find me guilty. It took them hours, like eight, nine hours to give them my time. They wanted to go home and come back. And I told, I said, nah, go on running now. Give me what I'm gonna get right now.  I said, man, tell them to give me what I'm giving right. I ain't letting them go, because it was my decision. Oh really? Let them go home. It's my decision. Because when they go home, they can call their husband and wives, their sisters and brothers and get information from them. Now I want them right here. When they locked in, we locked in. I'm finna be locked up. Go on running right now. We all locked in. And that's what they gave you. They gave me for it. They made a decision on my life. We found this out. My brother, my brother, he a committee and he could fit in anywhere. He taught me a lot of what I know. He wiggled his way in the conference meeting with the jurors. They thought he was a juror. How? Because he looked professional all the time. He just, that's how he always looked. He wore boots or some type of dress shoe. He always got a dress shirt on. He always trying to talk up on some money. He always trying to hustle. So he heard it all. He heard them talking about, they wanted to give me, they was talking about giving me like, I mean probation. And there was three jurors and they wanted to give me life. But you got 12. So it's a whole bunch in the middle that didn't know what to do. Because I had his child's mother, my nephew's mom, she was a teacher. She got to understand and gave an impact statement for me about my schooling, how smart I was, how I just got off on the wrong foot. And there was like four teachers on my juror. So they felt that. So they didn't want to send me to prison. They wanted to give me probation.  He wasn't moving from there. He wasn't budging. He was like, no, he need life. How did he make a jury? How he wasn't struck? Exactly. My life didn't even strike him. He didn't even strike him. But at the time, I don't know this. It was a couple of slick tricks. Like they put my mom on the stand and they use us as a hostile witness. And I didn't understand at the time, because hostile to me, it only means like she finna be aggressive or aggravated to her men. She ain't gonna never be like that to her men. They gon' badger her. But he got hostile witness in the court a lot. David can tell you this. He can verify. It mean they finna put somebody on the stand that's supposed to be for you, but they gon' make him be a guilty man. Right, because they gon' badger her. So they put my mom on the stand and made her tell them that she don't know me. Because they were like, really, you taught them this? And she got up there and said, I taught them to take that gun. I taught them to sell drugs. I probably would have walked away. Like, oh, this is mom if I was dead. But she got up there and told the truth. I ain't teach them that. I ain't never showed them how to sell no drug.  You don't know him. So when you get sentenced to 40 years, how long do you stay in the county before you get shipped off from the chain gate? Not long. I thought I was gon' be there. Everybody else was staying there months and you're almost. I was gone like, it wasn't even 45 days. Okay. I was on that bus. What transfer? Did you go to Gurney? Gurney. Okay. 6-4 down there. With the Gurney? Yeah. You on the Joe F. Gurney unit? With the Gurney. What did you get off the bus? You on the Joe F. Gurney unit?  You know you got 40? You not trying to hear it? Or how was you thinking when they took you off of that bus? I left, for me to know now that prison is just modern day slavery. I left like a slave. I ain't had no shoes on. It was raining. I was barefoot.  Get naked. Stand, stand back to back, front to back with him and do me like that. And now that we know that it's modern day slavery, it's pattern straight out the slavery. For me to know some of the slave tales and stuff like that. Me seeing my brother, my brother tried to get there. I called him and told him I was on the chain. He had somebody call him on the phone. He said, you know the phone's gonna come on the 7 o'clock. They call you on the chain like four in the morning. So I mean call my brother when the phone come on, tell him I'm on the chain so he can bring me some shoes and stuff. Cause I had to get off and leave. I had like $13,000 in my books, which I kept money, but I had just spent it on commissary. You can't take it with you though. It stayed behind. So for me to see him in the parking lot when we leaving on the bus. And he's had it looking like, you don't know where you're going bro. Like, I know you don't know where you're going now. Cause I ain't never been there. Know what I'm saying? I ain't never been there, but I always had this thing that I found that over time.  I let mine flow me to the situation. Wow. So let my butterfly take me where I'm going. Cause I'm going to get them. Everybody get them. Everybody get what you're going to where you don't know, but I just let mine take me. They ain't going to take me back. I'm just going for it. When you get there, you go through the situation to get in there, get you your mat. You end up going to a probably a 24 man tank. I know the game baby. You get over there. Once you get in there, you knew you got to do 40 years. Did they separate you from everybody? Did they just put you in the midst of everything? I just put you in the midst of everybody. I met, I met this guy, me and him. We ended up bearing. We had a mutual friend named Bobby Clark. He was the only one in the tank from Waco. I had never met him before that. We, we all the same age with the school. He went to Waco, I went to university. So Waco, this ain't just that smile, but we didn't know each other prior to that. He had caught a case. He was locked up for robbing somebody, shooting somebody, something like that. I met him. They put me right on his bum. Not on purpose. They didn't know it from Waco. It was the bunker that was open. I ended up here selling. You know, we in the, Gurney is a room for the mugs. It's a county, you know what I'm saying? So I ended up here selling. So he gave me the rundown, about the tank, them the crypts over there, them Bloods over there. So a whole bunch of Mexican gangs over here. This there another, you know what I'm saying? Cut out of here, the batches. So we ain't gonna have no problems. We're gonna rock out if we have to. Prairie Point Blank. Did they check your paperwork? They who? Check your paperwork. No, that's in the state. Oh man. Yeah. So when you, when you end up in there, how long do you stay on the joy of Gurney unit before you ship to a convict unit? Oh, I got the farewell second. 1998, never forget the date. I left August 8th, 1998. Behind a rider, I had nothing to do with it. Man, you there awhile. I was just six months. So when you leave, what did they send you to? To a McCona unit. McCona? Texas. I was, was that a, that a convict unit? That was, that was, that was a, when I say convict, like a lot of people that's got a lot of time go to that unit cause you had four years. They built it for them. When they built McCona, they shipped a whole shipment of cofee of people that had been on cofee and been on cofee for years. They shipped them there. They opened that unit up first and they opened McCona with. It was the start of 1993. That's when they opened it like 1993. So they opened it up with people from big units. So yes, everybody they're like, since I've been out, a string of brothers, we've been met up and hooked up. They was done from the day it opened and they just got out when I got out. So they was a 25, 30 year-old, having a lot of 10, 15 years before that. You know what I'm saying? So McCona, McCona hold you.  When you end up getting, when you on, when you, when you end up going there, you, you, you still learning how to do time. Yeah, it's fresh. You're fresh.  No, I wasn't even in it. I wasn't in it at all. I wasn't in the right eye. It was a game. It was a game, right. And I never, I never got involved with the games. You know, when I got locked up, cause there wasn't no games happening like that in Waco, like it is now. Back then it wasn't no games only his Spanish had games. They considered us a game. They say we was the South Sardis. So they put that title on us. I had to get in prison and really get around the games to realize that the definition of a game, we was doing it though. You know what I'm saying? Definitely how they got it defined. We was doing it. Three or more people that hang together and they move in a certain fashion together and criminally. We was doing that. That's what this definition is. You know what I'm saying? So we was doing that, but we, our parents was going to bat for us saying, now they family, they just grew up together, which was true. We started out playing sand life football and moved to some mill. You know what I'm saying? We was getting rocks out of the way to play football instead of getting hurt on them. We started throwing rocks in prison. Late on that. I gotta ask you how was, what was the difference from the Carolina unit versus Gurney unit parts? It was a two man sales or what? It was all kids. Like they, on Gurney, even now today, they don't let a convict stay over there. If somebody come back in the Gurney that's been in prison before, he gonna get shipped quick because they want to manipulate the youngsters in there. They want to be able to, you know, deal with them, how they need to deal with them and train them, which is, this is segue into something I want to tell you about before we leave, about how the prison system, the reform part of what they said about prison, it's just like saying, make America great again to me. It sound the same. It's no reform. It's no reform inside prison because how can, what you gonna reform me to? Yeah, but don't they have, don't they have education and stuff to think? Once again, what you gonna reform me to? We was getting educated when we went in there by that system. And we still went in there. So what you gonna reform me to? You gotta spiritually reform me. You gotta give me some spirit. You gotta give me something. You gotta put me back on the path that we could never have been on from where our people came from.  You can't tell me. They ain't the same person. People in the Lord God don't do that. So it couldn't have came from that. How long was you on McConaughey? 15 years. 15, so you did the majority of your time on McConaughey? 15 years on McConaughey. What caused you to leave McConaughey? Kids, I stayed on McConaughey for a year because I called myself getting money over there. But you was getting money over there? Yeah, I was getting it. Taking care of my children, you know what I'm saying? Trying to get out. I was trying to get out because the main money source is always, hey, you gotta realize by the time you heard everything. Because he didn't come, my dad didn't come to the trial. He couldn't take it. He really saw, he's strong as all I do. We can't, he saw when it come to me. So he knew I was finna go down. Kind of like I did about my partner. He couldn't watch it. So he didn't, he never showed up. He was just getting the information. And once he realized, this boy been doing all the stuff they say he been doing. You know what I'm saying?  Him going through what he went through and what you witnessed drove you to go to law. That night. Why? Well, for a few reasons. First reason is, before it ended, I guess being naive, I thought in order to get convicted, you had to do something. I sit there and watch my partner go to jail for something he didn't do. Cause I know he, cause I saw him. So they convinced 12 people that something happened that did not happen. Convinced. That's the whole game. Beyond the reason without, they believe something that happened beyond the reason without, that did not happen. At all. So that drove you to where you say I wanna try to- I really was just doing to get him out. Cause I'm knowing, he got to do a 20. Cause it's an act. I know it don't take 20 years to get out of law school. And Texas got a law for that. But when you went, you appealed it, right? I appealed it. I appealed it. They gave him another attorney, which was a notable attorney in Waco, Walter Reed. They gave him a notable attorney again. And he fought it. But from what I've seen on paper, he fought it. If I show him the paper, he probably like he ain't do nothing. Cause he know the law. That's the difference. I'm blaming, he a law professional. Two different people. You know what I'm saying? Two different people. The words that I understand in English, regular word, they saying words that use them in the law field, they mean something totally different. You know what I'm saying? It's a different world. But then they'll tell you, even to the law, it ain't no excuse. It ain't no excuse if you don't know. Cause he learned it. So I could learn it. You know what I'm saying? That's how they look at it. So I appealed it. And it looked good on paper. You know, I was just like any other dude that's in there. I'm finna get out. I'm finna get out. Everybody think that, you know, and some people do, but it's a smile percentage because they continue to push the goalposts back. They'll push the goalposts back on you. I mean, you get right there as a goal line and fourth and one and they'll move it back.  They do it out of time. How did you know you was denied? They see you, they see you paperwork in the mail. They sent it to you. It's a long walk from the mail room. Everybody get it. But how many lawyers actually defend someone like you're their brother? Very few. You understand what I mean?  But how many lawyers that you just meet? A lot of them just a business. Right. A lot of them just a business. They gonna get the money regardless.   You know what I'm saying? It's like she said, it's just your brother compared to somebody you really don't know, it's just money, money transaction. Wow. You get a 40 year stint but you end up coming home after doing 24 years. 23. 23, 24, 23. I keep saying 23. I don't know why I want you to do it. I think, I don't know. Somebody do 24 years that I've been talking about. Cause I talk to a lot of folks down here. 23. It's an even number.    I only seen parole twice. I caught more time in prison too. What? Hustling. Yeah, I got jammed. They got you on McCombs. Yeah, on McCombs. How you doing? Cause you was on there, you had it set up. I got caught on some more places too though but they got me on McCombs. They got you. I got investigated by the feds in prison. I got caught up in a federal investigation. How? Hustling. They just being ignorant. Trying to get out. Thinking that was my way out. Not understanding. I did all that and still end up getting out when they let me go on parole. I had the money. I had the money to get a lawsuit.  I started loaning it out and giving it to family members and this, that and the other.  So using that deal of a contraband and all kind of stuff. Yeah, it's higher in there. Everything's six for one. Cadet, it's very, it's very, it happens a lot in prison. Yeah. But from what a lot of people make it sound like whenever, I don't know if it goes for that as well, but like say example, you buy something, this gum out here and you pay $2 out here and there it might go for $20. If an officer wanna just sell food in prison, they can sell a, I gave her a lot of one time, $50 to bring me a family meal on Kentucky Fried Chicken. I gave her $50 to bring it in and the money to pay for it. So she got $50 to buy food and they ain't gonna never stop her. They gonna let her buy the food, they think the law is for needed. They always doing something, darling. They think the law is for needed so they gonna let her walk it in and they ain't no contraband. It's contraband when I get it.  What you doing there? Good job, give her a chicken in there.  One and two, you know what I'm saying? So that's the type of movement that can happen for anybody in there, you know? As you was in there though, when you was dealing with this, you came home finally, but they denied you that first time. How hard was it being denied? What you heard or you expected them to deny you? I didn't expect it. I wanted to go home by then, but I had changed my life by then so I could accept it. I wasn't a kid anymore. I wasn't a kid anymore. I'ma say, I became Muslim in 1998. So I've been, that's when I first got in there. Yeah. So let me, let's break that down. Because you was selling contraband. Let's break that down. The Muslim said drugs, he was ignorant. I was still ignorant. See, I'm saying how you have full understanding. I just believed that Muhammad was mentioned in the law was the only God. I believed that, but that don't mean I was totally equipped to do what I'm doing now. Cause now I'm out here. Where ain't nobody got to walk to no gate to bring no drugs. I ain't touching nothing since I've been out here.  No, see, that's what we need to stop it. I wasn't doing none of that for 10 years. I just had accepted the faith. I wasn't doing nothing.  It was when I went to get moved, pack up for a shake down, you know how it go.  All you got in the world, you gotta pack it on your back. That's the only time I almost touched that current. I touch it every now and then. Or somebody say something and I go look for it. I wouldn't, it wasn't in me. When was the defining moment when you knew like I got to start reading this thing, man. I done been to Juma and I done been to Tallinn, but they ain't changed. I tapped all the way in when he end up representing my son on the case. There it is. I tapped all the way in and I throw the towel, I cry for days. I throw the towel in on everything. He's like, he for to be mess around.  Pretty important to blame.  How old was your son at this time? He was 17. Same day. Did you have a, did you have? Superstores in high school on the way to college and called the case one night. Did you blame yourself for it? Yeah, I still do. I mean, I wouldn't know, I'm first not a security. Now I wouldn't know, my mom and my daddy end up raising my brother and my family and his uncle. No, I'm saying it's cousin, my nephew. How old were you when he left? How old was he when you left? Uh-oh, I caught my case on his first birthday. Wow. He was one. When I came back, he was 24. He used to come down there to see you. Yeah, with my mom. When you heard it, how did you hear that he was your son and got him shown? He told me, my mom really didn't tell me. They told him, didn't tell me. They called him, we need help. They called him, but no, I'm calling, they ain't tell me nothing. They ain't call me, I got cell phones. They could call me.  When I called him, got in touch with my partner, you had Davey say, man, Davey say he got some tea. So they told him, Davey told him, man, tell him Troy got a cake. And my son ain't Troy too. Tell him Troy got a cake. Did you, were you able to beat it? He could have beat it. Yeah. They were scared to let him go to trial. Yeah. The family was scared. Right. Because they went through that with you. Kept him out here though. Kept him out here. He could go to prison in that one. But he had to end up holding him for a day. Knocked him out the field, followed him here. He was cold, he was cold. You were a lawyer at this time. Right. But you weren't his lawyer. Right. Why? Oh, he was young, 17 when he was here. No, no, no, not his lawyer. I'm talking his son. He was his son's lawyer. Oh, you was his son. Okay. He was a lawyer. Check this out. The state of Tess got a law, he can't be my lawyer. On that case, because he was with me. Yeah, because he was with you. I figured that. That's crazy. To me though. But the thing here is, he's a different person. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, but you basically, your son, I want to talk about you getting released into how it was coming home after all those years. And I know it had to be a delight to get out of there. It was, I was overjoyed. No, my mom, my dad and my son, they came. I got a daughter too. You know, she was, she just had a baby. How in the hell? My daughter, my daughter had just been born. I don't know what I'm saying. Okay, I get it now. I'm gonna say, nigga, you started at 13. You dirty, you dirty, you dirty, you started at 13. Running streets. Running streets. Like, so you had two kids, which that was a blessing. Yeah. I say this and I'm gonna say that my cousin, he did now at the Kevin, but he had a, he was coming up here at 17. I'll never forget it. He was coming from the country. You remember this, me and my wife was- Had a bright future. He had a bright future, but he was crazy to me. He ended up telling me he wanna have a child. He's 17. This do not sound good to me. He telling me, he telling his dad, he telling her, I wanna have a baby. I'm gonna have a baby.  I want you boy, you're 17. And his girlfriend, she's smart, was gonna get scholarship to university. All of that. I'm like, you gonna miss the future. He's still saying that. I wanna have a baby. I'm like, man, you crazy. Not long after that, make a long story short. He working in Orfield, on his way home, they had a red, and it didn't kill him. It made him brain dead. He had that baby before he did that. Before he did that. He ended up being brain dead and in the bed for about 10 or 11 years in the nursing home. But I always would go back to that when he would drive him to my house. This is my first cousin. And I kept telling him, man, you crazy, man. But he didn't probably understand why he was saying that. But God already had put this inside of him. He moved you. He moved you. It'd be things like, he don't want nobody to have no interest in the children.  So you feel the knock yourself out the box because I already know. So go and have these kids because you doing wrong anyway. You messing around, y'all ain't trying to get married. Y'all young. You know what I'm saying? Ain't too young to get married, but y'all ain't trying. So I'm gonna plant these seeds for you because you feel the knock yourself out the box because I already see it. You can't see it. If I tell you all the time, it's a joking thing. If you told me, if I knew right now, you was gonna pass away, I'd say, hey man, let me wear that ring.  You gonna be gone. You ain't, who gonna come back and for it?   If I knew, that's why we don't know those type of things. But what I look at is that the bloodline, the bloodline had to continue. We're not thinking about, it may not even be his son who something special is supposed to come through. It could be his son, son. Some had to happen. You understand what I mean? Somebody great gonna come through that line that we don't even know. That's right. Wow. I just, like I said, I do wanna ask you about when you was released, after doing all those years, 23 years is a long time, man, to not be in society dealing with those COs all that time, they busting pen. You know what I'm saying? All these old cases, you got tired. I know you're getting shook down. They taking everything all the time. What was it? And you knew, did you get an F-51 or two? I got a, I actually got a one when I finally got one. Oh, you got a one? A 45 there? Yeah. How long did it take them to get you? It didn't take, it still took a long time for the 45 there because they got extension on it if needed, based on unit operations.  But it gave me parole and then I had to go back and see them again on the charge. I caught the eight year charge. And then everybody was like, man, you probably won't make a parole now. I'm like, once again, me being a thinker, it don't make sense. They just gave me parole on Timothy Cavamurray. Why would they not give me parole on weed? They don't even make sense. But some people don't make it, but they don't tell you what they did in between. Correct. I didn't do nothing. Nothing. My record was clean for the last six, seven years I was in there. You know what I'm saying? Like I said, after my son caught that case, I just laid it down on everything.  You know what I'm saying? Once I found out he couldn't represent me, well, I gotta get the money. You know what I'm saying? He like, well, my dad take care of it. And he said, man, you know, I got you, but it's just me being me. Still it was kind of a little ignorant. I got to do it for myself. You know what I'm saying? So I almost jumped back out there, but I didn't. I had a firm to the rope of love and I just stayed in the state of focus. You was praying then. You started praying in. I started, I got all the way, I ended up on Co-Field unit. Oh, you done Co-Field? Co-Field is a Co-Field. Co-Field, if you go to the game, tell the officer, amen, I'm trying to go to the chapel. He'll let you out. They want you to go in there. Most units ain't like that.  You want to go to the chapel, go.  Instead of just, they ain't don't know we gonna correct you as a prison system. Go in there. Your brother's in there. It's some old people in there going there because you got a big chapel, state all the equipment in there. You can go in there by the videos, all type of stuff. So they want you in there. So I got on that unit and that's why I learned. That's why I learned most of what I know now as far as it's known. That's why I learned the majority of it. You know? So, go ahead. So how long you been out? Since now. October 2nd, 2019, it'd be four years this year. Four years. And I see you married. How long you been married? Since the year I got out. The year you got out. Yeah, I made a vow to myself when I left for the part of my faith that I wasn't gonna fornicate, you know? So I laid some ground rules when I got out here, I was staying with my parents. And you know, girls was coming from everywhere trying to talk to me. And once I laid the ground rules, once I laid the ground rules, she don't even wanna stick by the rules. My wife don't wanna stick by the rules. She like, the ground rules, you gotta come over with my parents here.  See what I'm saying? I know it ain't nothing gonna happen until I'm, cause my wife, she don't wanna do it. What y'all doing over there? She gonna come through. You know. You hadn't been with a woman in a long time. By my choice. But it was some guards in there. By my choice. Cause them guards didn't get out. By my choice, yeah. By my choice I hadn't been with one. The whole time. I walked the whole walk. 23 years, no. No woman. How hard was that? It wasn't hard for me, because I never was on. Wait a minute. 23 years. I'm just telling you, I had a phone. Man, come on, bro. Listen, listen. Listen, boss, I had a phone. You gotta understand, I had a phone. I got out in 2019. I had a phone for 13 years. So I was talking to people. Take care of myself. I was looking at the phone. I was able to take care of myself. I wasn't a regular inmate. See what I'm saying? I had a phone for 13 years. Different phone, multiple phones. But they didn't know you had a phone. Nah. Okay. You got snitches in prison. They were telling it. But I ain't got it when they come. I ain't got it. Jojo got it. So you got a phone. You communicate with the outside world. Communicate, meeting people. But the only thing it was, you just, come on, man. It's one thing I know. It's one thing I know. It's one thing I know. Watch this, watch this. Okay, okay, watch this. 23 days. We been going long, 23 days. Now I got to go home after this, man. Watch this, watch this, watch this. Before you ever crossed that line, you didn't know how it felt. Once you crossed that line, that's when it became a problem. Okay, what's the deal? So once I was in that county jail, once I was in that county jail, 18 months, 18 months was long enough to meet that I didn't forget. It's a long time. It's a minor of a matter thing. 18 months. Ain't no action, no county jail. Yeah, but they got them guards coming through there, man. Them type payers, man. Nah, not back then. That's what I'm saying. So watch this, so watch this. I got you in bed. It won't bite in 22 years. I'm gonna give you two reasons why I'm not gonna have to bite. Because the same woman that you're trying to talk to in there, she talking to a dude down in the house and she don't know when she go home though he talking to a man, though.  You can ask him, I've always been scared of them. I can't see. I can't see diseases. I'm scared of them. See what I'm saying? Do you see that a lot in prison? Do you see that a lot in prison? What? It's like a man. What Western said on this song? What Western said on this song?  Oh yeah. Yeah, it go down like that. It happened like that. I didn't go home and she don't even know. So that's my whole badge of honor. Because some of the dudes on me have no time to fall victim like that.  To no scallywag women, none of that. I ain't fall victim, none of that. None of the other under the table stuff. I didn't fall victim, none of that. Ain't nobody can walk, nowhere. Like dead or alive and say, well, yeah, he, no. It wasn't even on in me. So Facebook comes out while you in there? I'm on it. I'm on it. Instagram comes out while you in there? Instagram, I laid the phone down by telling Instagram, okay, I got out for it. But you looking at Facebook like, yeah, let me get this up. This up, I see it. I don't talk cases behind my back. No. Yeah. Yo. But you're used to it. It wasn't like strange to you when you came out because you understand that they had a person that could go on that phone and get stuff out of it that you thought you erased. See, that TDCJL paid that person. It's an accountant. They're gonna pull the numbs, you gotta, you can't mix it up where they can't find it.  You was sending pictures. Yeah, sending pictures. Send them to my nephew, send them to everybody. You thought you was in the free world. I was. You were riding in his mind. He riding, nigga, I'm riding. I'm telling you something that people have made about. Shoes cost $49,000 in there. I used to tell people, I got $1549 shoes. I kept $1500 out of my shoes with the prison. The whole time? Kept it in there. For years. Well, on McCartney. For years. For years, I did. $1500. That was my cap. That was my claim to fame in there. They knew you had it on you too. Yeah. The guy, my in-crab, my guy. Some of the in-crab. My guy, I picked people well. You gotta realize we ran with like 10 people, none of them told on me. They could have buried me. Wow. That's why we like we as now. Cause I know he could have buried me. See what I'm saying?  Now he, he, when I, yeah, I live from Hutchins. You're right. That's what he tells you. Yeah, I live from Hutchins. I live from Hutchins, yeah. I live from Hutchins. That's what I'm all the time coming from Hutchins. Yeah. So when you get to Hutchins, what did you, what did you, you was like, man. That was the longest time. You were like three days. I'm three days out, bro. I was like, man, it's, it ain't any time to get up. And then it go to sleep. I'm waiting on them three days. I was there three days. What did you, what was the first thing you did when you came home?  I don't know what you wanted to do. Neither I know everybody having. I really couldn't do, I really couldn't do too much. You had to monitor. I had five pro losses. Five? Yeah. The pro losses for the state. My mama, my daddy, my brother, I had five pro losses. I couldn't do nothing. So did you go out to eat? Do you remember? Was it anything different?  Once they told my mom that, if they had told somebody, I might have asked leeway. They told mom, he need to go straight home. That's what I did. You went straight home. It wasn't no moving. She said, I ain't losing like that again. We going straight home. We went straight home. Everybody came. He came, TJ came, my nephew came, my brother was there. Everybody came to my house for, for, for, for months. Everybody came to my house. How did you feel for everybody to show you that love and come out and just support you like that? It felt good. You know, the old me would have been like, I earned it, but it didn't feel good.  Life taught me this morning, bloodline though. You know what I'm saying? Like down the line, we all can, that's what they say. I believe that because I believe in Adam and Eve. So down the line, we all can. But I know outside of that, that it's family outside of bloodline, direct bloodline, you know what I'm saying? I've witnessed that. My brother was telling them, my own dad and them, like y'all for the scene. Cause the whole time my brother was telling them, my mama know, y'all don't believe Junior, who he is. And they like, he ain't do all that stuff. He said, y'all for the scene when you get out, watch how they gonna show up. And they were coming through with them bag.  You gonna have to tell some drugs or some kids or something like that stuff. I say, no, they just bringing it. Just bringing it. I told my dad, I said, they would have bought me a car if I didn't tell him not to. But we rolled for the 23. It wasn't ever no disconnect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It was tough sometime cause you missed him. Absolutely. And I know that he ain't never something you can do. Yeah, that mess with you. And your hand side. Yeah. And there was some money couldn't fix it. Yeah, it wasn't no, it wasn't no buying out. It's crazy. Sorry. Go ahead. And did you, since he had kids while he was gone, did you feel like, well, I got to step in to try to? That's oversteer. But like he said, he got a, his family, you know what I'm saying? His mom and dad. His mom and dad. Straight, but at the end of the day, that wasn't even a question. And they know that. That's a good friend, man. When we interviewed Ice T the other day and his friend Spike, they wrote a book. Did y'all, y'all heard of it? I heard of it. It was called Split Decision. It was almost the same situation. It was kind of like they was running together. It went different. And then they ended up, he ended up getting in entertainment and stuff. And Spike ended up doing? Time. How much time? Was it 24 years? 24 years. 24 years. 24 years. 24 years. I don't remember. Spike did the 24, didn't do the 24. I ain't doing no more. I ain't doing no more. I got another pro loss of now. I ain't doing no more. I'm pretty sure they won't. So anyway, Spike did the 24 years and then you basically, they called the book Split Decision. Will you guys ever do a book anything on y'alls? On everything they have? Can you have a documentary? We're gonna do a lot. I'm gonna do a documentary because my whole life changed. At one point in time, I had made my mind up. I met so many different people there. You gotta understand, I had a dude that used to pay me $200 for moving my phone for like 10 minutes. So you can imagine who he was calling. You can imagine who he was calling. I gave him his own SIM card. It's your SIM card because I don't know what you're doing. But I met so many people and I coulda came. I hadn't been way worse than what I was when I went in. So for me, I had made my mind up. I thought I'm so much different to me than the rest of my family. How I think, I just thought that I was just cursed or something. I had got to that point. You know, you gotta realize the 23, if I wanna think of the 23 years, it did kinda get to me at times because I started thinking that I actually shot the law. I started believing it like I had to. Like how I ended up in something I had to miss. Me and David missed something. Cause I just couldn't believe that they had, that me of all people had been railroaded like that. And when they say I did something I totally didn't do. So I started believing I did it for a period of time. I was like, I had to did it man. But then me knowing me, like he was saying earlier, I got out of the artillery. It wouldn't have been like that. So I know I didn't do it. That's what I had to, I had to reason with that. Like that ain't charged like, like one bullet, no clip in the gun. You wasn't trying to do nothing to him. I had to reason out like that cause I had got to a point where I believed I did. But at the end of the day, you know, it's just, I got the documentary I'm gonna do. I've been supposed to been trying to do like podcasts and stuff like this. Like people was like, when Suzy, you said that about to David, but I got to interview him. My son was like, you gonna do it? Cause they feel like I'm not like, I don't want nobody to know. But I know that in life, my story, it's gonna change somebody. I believe it. That's the whole game of boss talk. It's gonna change somebody. Is that people can see your story and see his story. And pretty much they can gain some from it. People, young people might be going through something similar. So we always got to take the opportunity to tell our story because it helps other people. How did, were you proud to see David pursuing a law like that? Yeah, I'm one of the ones that encouraged him to go ahead and take, you know what I'm saying, Joe with Craig Watson, he first style. He was like, man, we from the street. I can't do that. I'm like, bro, it's some charm unless somebody need to go down. Yeah. You can be somebody. You know what I'm saying? That's an opportunity for you to actually get some money cause he ready for an NBA. Really? He cold. He wear that. He mad. Literally. I ain't, I watched basketball. You know how Tupac was on button ring? Yeah. I used to be like that.  With a Dallas Cowboy starter pullover on. Watching the game. Big yourself. You right there with him. Watching them. They bad. He don't have a cover pot. They bad with their ball. They bad. They could have, they supposed to made it. That's cold, man. Just got caught up doing other things. He just proved that you can find something else to do. That's what I'm trying to get my son to understand. Like you can find something else to do.  You can find something else to do. You can do anything. Let me ask you a question. I'll ask both of y'all a question. Because we know that the justice system is lacking in a lot of different ways. And a lot of people go in and keep coming out and going back in and so forth.  How can we get this right, where people are not falling in the system and keep going right back? What can we do for these people who are trying to come out? You got a lot of people that I heard with movements for reform or help people change to alter what's to happen in the past. You got to start first with the one before they even get in there, you know? You got to start grassroots, kind of like how they stole football and basketball. They pushed the football and basketball big time now in these neighborhoods and they make money out for it.  But you got to stick with them. You got to have different levels where you're going to stick with them. Now, for those that's already in prison, that's coming out like I did. One of my plans, not on mine, they exposed my plans because the same way I did when I hustled, I know it's enough money out here for everybody. You know what I'm saying? No such thing as only for me or only for you. But one of the things that happened when I was on my way out, they make it now where you have to take a trade. But the trade ain't no good once I got out here. It's only good if David helped me start a business. And I say him because I know he an entrepreneur like that. Or if I go out like I did and my cleaning business started doing this for myself. So I know the cleaning business was the lowest form of money that I would have to use and I wanted to do it myself. So I started it. They spent no more than $300 and it started. It's been running every since, three years now. But- Congratulations. Thank you. But the trades, I had an HVAC trade. I applied for a job once I got out here and every time I finally realized every job was asking for a test that they don't give you in TCJ. But they didn't pay if you to take the trade. It's a game. But the state jail, where majority of the Caucasian offenders go, they get a trade, they get a test over there for the same trade though. But they don't get a trade to the hard quote unquote hardcore prisoners, the ones that get out of town. They don't give you that trade. But we don't want this really funneling the pipe because we got to take the trade to get out. So everybody taking these trades, age bag, plumbing, all type of stuff, auto mechanic, diesel mechanic.  So I want to start a system that's gonna understand that. Ain't gonna funnel them where we can get you on a job where you get job and then we can start a business for you. Because every man, once upon a time, every man knew how to fish and knew how to farm. Now they don't know how to fish and farm them or you work for somebody. You know what I'm saying? So now it ain't no, it ain't no staying out the way because you feel like you got to get in the way. You know what I'm saying?  You get out here, you see these dudes wearing all this stuff. You know, I didn't have that problem. I didn't have that problem. The stuff I got on now, I got stuff like this that I just now to tell, this brand new, I got stuff like this, I just to tell them that he bought them when I first got out. And my other friends bought me. I had stuff for days, for years, not days for years that they bought me. So I didn't have the problem that most guys have when they get out. They don't have nothing. I had support, you know what I'm saying? I had support and it took me to be in there with people that didn't have enough support to find a real life. I had said I just wanted to read my letter from my mom because his mom wouldn't write him. I wanna ask you how big was it for you when he came home? It was huge, like I was saying, even whatever college I was at, I would drop a line. He got all the addresses to every dorm I lived in. It was one point in time where I had to get the mail sent to the coach because we couldn't get mail directly.  Him and I got another part in jail, Mookie. Mookie. That's locked up in California. He was back in basketball too. They were writing me, vice versa. When I made the Dean's List in college, I sent him the thing. Sent it to me. Wow. I still got it. I was about to say, did you save all of those? I sent it to me. The letters too, did you save the letters? Yeah, I still got it in my drawer. I told my mom, I said, they would send me a Dean. Why did you send it to me? He sent it to his mom. I said, he sent it to me. I told her. But why did you send it to him? You just wanted to let him know. I'm working. It's taking a little time. I'm locked in. You want him to know you had him on your mind? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because we got promises that from a juvenile. Yeah. You understand what I'm saying? And so just when like some type of crazy way, he ended up getting locked up with the dude who smoked our partner that we got locked up, that my partner that was there, he got locked up, the dude who killed him. Some weird crazy type of way. Twice. First somebody knows him. Y'all gonna say you knew him? I never came back. I never came back but I knew it was him the first time. Because you knew what type of person you were. Yeah. The second time when I ran into him, I was praying five times a day. He was on his sword. He had marks on him, forehead marks on him. You know what I'm saying? He was praying out of time. God knew that you could deal with it at that time. And he had forgot me though. He never knew me anyway. But the first time I bumped into him, I talked to him. I bumped into him three times actually. I bumped into him with chain butts when we couldn't have got to each other. You knew that was him on the chain butt? I knew that was him. Because his sister, our partner's sister who passed away too, got killed too. She had told me everything about it.  No, he just killed the brother. The brother. I run and partner with all the time. Who actually is my cousin about blood also. So he ends up on that chain game with you? And I'm talking to you. You were on the girl in the unit? No, this one I was on. Go out in the club? I was on cold field by the end and we went on the chain together. He was on another unit. He was in said because he was running for people. People were trying to get him. Y'all talked to him. He was just answering questions like he knew me about that. Because he didn't know. He just told me like he just, because he to ask for forgiveness and he to how my mama forgave him, you know what I'm saying?  He was like, yeah, man, dropped his head. He didn't, he was hurt. I'm like, why are you doing it? He's like, man, I tripped out. Like for me to, if somebody has asked you, you killed somebody. You're doing this to pick at him and see what the heck he was doing. I'm on one side of the gate, he on the other side of the gate. You know, like I tell you about time, I say, I don't know, Clarice, I couldn't do nothing to him anyway. I'm stuck with that. What did you feel when he told you that? I'm mad, still deemed. Cause he cut, cause this your cousin. I was, yeah, I wasn't deemed up, deemed like I am now. I wasn't nowhere near that. I was still, I was right back to that unit, got back to hustling and was, you know what I'm saying? Doing stuff I wouldn't handle a bit of doing, but I'm talking to him and he looking at me and dropping his head. Like, man, I ain't, like I ain't mean to. No, I didn't want to in other words. You know what I'm saying? The first time I ran into him, I didn't know who he was. I was on the record with him all the time. Cause now when I'm looking at him like, man, I know you. You know what I'm saying? I was around you back then, when I first got on Gurney, when I first got on McCung, like 10 years. And you seen him again? Seen him again. Then the unit I made pro loan, I seen him nerf. And I told my mom, I say, they do it over. I'm on the phone, my dad. And my dad said, what if it get you moved? My mom said, you ain't got to. He ain't the same person no more. He ain't the same person. He ain't the same person. So you didn't even talk to him no more? My mom would tell him, he was gonna do something so he wouldn't even tell us. That's right. He wouldn't even tell us. So when we, you ever talked to him, he didn't ever know that he'd tell us your cousin? I didn't even say them to him the third time. You just, just let it go. I didn't let it go. Cause I learned in his learning me teachers that if I would have did something to him, I would have sent myself to hell anyway. Cause his mama forgave him. Yeah. His mama. See what I'm saying? Cause once upon a time it wasn't no courses. It was blood time. You could, somebody did something to your family member.  You could ask the judge that. It was a course system, but they didn't, they didn't do like texts or the state, United States. Or you could actually say, I'll just forgive them and give them me some sheets or give me some cows. It's blood money. You know what I'm saying? That's out the door.  Wow, man, I sure appreciate you guys, man. So I know David, you definitely gonna be back on the show. I'll be trying to educate our people on, you know, different law terminologies, trying to figure out how to help our people. So David's gonna be coming back. We've already made agreement periodically to speak to him. And you definitely come back with, we can tell prison stories cause I love doing it, to be honest with you. We ain't tackled some of the riots, some of the stuff. I know already there's some stuff to happen with you. You know, you might've seen anything of wanting to get pregnant by an inmate. You've seen that for sure. Even though you wasn't messing with him for 24 years. 23 years. Somebody was messing with him. That's a lie we told. Yeah.  Or some people that's coming home after 20 years, you can inspire them to know that it's okay, you can make it out here after you come home. You've started businesses. That's what I'm talking about. You know what I mean? These people need to know and see that. Would you be willing to talk to prisoners again? I'm trying to get to all of that. See, I've been back in the prison before. You went back and talked to them? Went through the front door. That's good. I went to Kofi and I was trying to go to Hughes unit, just past Ramadan, but they said, I couldn't come in there. They said I got some enemy over there. Okay. I've been there for four years.  You know what I'm saying? Go in there and gonna lock me up now. I mean, that's crazy. But you know, they gotta protect them. Whoever it is, I don't even know who it is. It ain't nobody that I know I had no problem when I was out here. It's probably somebody that puts a paper against it to get out for you. But the fact that you wanna go back in and show and help people and tell your story and help them to understand what they can do when they get out here, amazing brother. Yeah. When I went to Kofi, they were crying. Dan, you helped them. They wanted to have you home. They wanted to see they can do better. You know what I'm saying? To be able to tell them how things is out here and to see, like they see, like they expect me to do good out here. A lot of them, cause they like, you did good in here. You know, that's where my spiritual growth was at Kofi. They don't know the guy from McConnell on Kofi really. They don't know even though I got in trouble over there and got shipped out Kofi. But it wasn't me. It was me helping somebody. But they know the one that get up and give coupons, get up and talk. So they expect me to grow. And I'm out here, I bought that out here with me. You know, I do the service and stuff like that. You out is long. Yes. Okay. Yes. All day long.  I'm gonna get more in tune. You know, I got my business and stuff going. And you know, I gotta get over that hump and then I'm gonna get straight to that. That's where I really want to be. That's what I really want to do. I want to help out and help that funding system back out into society because Texas TTCJ don't do it. No, yeah. They don't. No, I get it. I get it. That's good stuff, man. So man, thank you guys, man. We love you brothers, man. Appreciate you all for coming over and showing man. Appreciate it, man. I'm glad to have you cause I didn't know if Dave was gonna get you over here or not. Dave and them be too busy. They got stuff going on. And then on the weekend, they were Mr. Lee hanging out. So they don't got time for the, you know, the ball to stop. Yeah, yeah. They got, yeah. Lee and them, they over there. I went there. I'm cool with it.  Man, God made y'all just stronger, man. And the bond and the friendship that I see here and witness, man. I thank God for letting me be a part of it, man. So I appreciate you brothers, man. Appreciate you. Man, what you think about this? I love it. We over here interviewing today, yo. Well, I tell you, hell, I'm pretty good at it now. I got pretty good at it, man. David, hell, I might stand on the stand and say a few things. I don't even know what to do. I don't even know what to do. Just drink, man. Just drink, man. Say it, man. Listen, man. It's been another great segment, man.  And we out.


To help a child learn about repeating patterns, you can use words. You can select three words, like dog, cat, bird. You can say them in the same order a few times with the child. Dog, cat, bird. Dog, cat, bird. Then you can say dog, cat. And ask the child, what's the next word? And the child can say bird. Doing this will help the child learn how to tell what comes next in a pattern.


Trek North Junior and Senior High School in Bemidji was in soft lockdown mode today after rumors of a potential threat circulated on social media. According to Trek North Executive Director Kristin Gustafson, on February 5th, the student who was suspended told a friend he was going to shoot up the school. Tuesday, as students returned to class after a long holiday weekend, rumors began to stir on social media, prompting parents to contact the school. In light of what has happened recently around the country, Gustafson said they aired on the side of caution. Throughout the day, police were present and were monitoring the doors. The school also had an increased staff presence and restricted students from leaving for open campus. The police did a threat assessment and a safety check and the threat was deemed not viable. Trek North will hold a meeting tomorrow night at 5.30 for parents and guardians who may have questions or concerns. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Okay, so if you're in here, we're going to be talking about How to build a good landing page and why you want to know about That is because when done right, you can really increase your Business as well as the number of leads you generate as opposed to Just the website. Thank you. Okay, so how to build a good landing page? By show of hands here, who, i'll just say designers and Developers, raise your hand. Wow, a lot. How about marketers and entrepreneurs? okay. To design the right landing page that generates a lot of leads For your customer and or your own products and services, it Really takes those four types of people that have expertise in Building a landing page that is well optimized as well as that Generates leads for you. So there's not really a unicorn That can generate, do all of this and do it well. And that's why over the last few years, i've really made it my Mission to work with developers, designers, the marketers, the Entrepreneur, and to figure out the best way to generate Lots of leads. Because otherwise, how are you Going to do business, right? the anatomy is pretty Simple. I mean, there's really about five Components when you're looking at a landing page from The images to the up there on the left hand side would be the Headline, the form on the right side, and some features and Benefits. So there's not a lot of components To a landing page to consider. A landing page is the whole Purpose of a landing page is to generate leads from those Clicks. And so the difference between that And your website is on your website, you might look at The google analytics and go great, there are people on my Site, but did it generate leads? probably not as much as if you Had a landing page. Okay. Something to consider before you start building your landing Pages. And one thing to note is that you Should have as many landing pages as you have products and Services. Whether you're a freelancer or Your client, or even like an e-commerce site, typically I know the people up in bokeh with office depot, they Manage over 10,000 landing pages. That's a lot of landing pages That are very product specific. So, but yeah, consider your Offer first, whether you're going to have something that you're Going to give in return to your visitor and what kind of Information you want to capture on the lead form. And then we're going to just dive into the four different Areas, the four elements from design to optimization and Marketing, as well as how to measure it properly. Okay. As it pertains to design, Layout is really important. You're going to do a lot of that in The ab testing. So placement, usually you'll see A form on the right-hand side. Also images, you can use stock Images, i think most of us do, but depending on the what Kind of product or service you have, especially if it's like A local small business, you might want to use a more Organic image and not just a cookie cutter stock image. And i bet when you do that testing, you'd see that the Conversion would go higher. Also responsive, obviously it's 2016. Everybody has smart phones. It goes without saying that your developer designer should Know how to make a responsive design. Excuse me. Colors and branding. That's obviously a very big piece of any design. One site that i really like is designmatters. And it really goes into the whole psychology of colors, what They mean. And kind of one step back when You're designing that landing page, talk to your team about The branding, looking at your logo and assets and making Sure that it's consistent. If your colors are blue and Green, you're not going to make a landing page that has Black and orange, for example. Design tips. When you're designing, as far as your offer goes, you want to Figure out whether it's a click-through landing page or a Legion landing page. And the click-through is basically Like if they're going to, once they land on the page, they Don't actually give their information. They actually have to click on, let's say join me and Then go to the next step to either create their profile or Something like that. Whereas a legion page, which is Mostly what i do, is basically a contact page and we're Capturing data and then dropping it into the crm. No navigation menus, that goes without saying, no Navigation menus on the header. If you're going to put any Pages that are hyperlinked or linked to another site, or Like your actual website pages, make sure that you do it On the footer. No navigational menus on the Header. Make sure that your call to action, Your images, your headline, everything that's important is Above the fold. You don't want to make the user Have to scroll down to see all the important information. I see that all the time, especially with the call to Action button being below the fold. That's a big no-no right there. These are small things that you'll see when you're doing Testing. If you're measuring everything On google analytics and looking at it, these are the small Things that end up 2%, 3%. For us as an agency, it's very Important because we generate about 30,000 leads a month for Hundreds of clients in 12 different industries. 2% can be a big difference in the number of leads that we Generate. Here's a sample design. As you can see, i'm always a big fan of giving back to the user. In this case, this broker is giving a guide to mortgages. All they're asking for is an e-mail address and two questions. Very short form. Easy to do. Those are the design elements. Now i'm going to talk to you Guys about optimization and what that means. With optimization, it's basically trying to make something as Functional as you can. These are the components when it Comes to optimization. You have the copy on the Headline. Again, we have marketers in our Company, but we work with writers. It might be simple that they're Only writing a little bit of copy, but it pays to have an Actual writer that tries 100 different headlines as opposed to Just your marketer or sales guy or tech, which that's Usually not their area. The call to action, you're Going to try many different ones with many different color Buttons. The forms. The form is something that's very important because whether you Go longer or short doesn't really always determine the actual Conversion. For example, we do insurance Forms, auto insurance, life insurance, and there are many Fields and how we overcome that conversion is by putting it In four steps. So you see a little progress bar. And we ask for their actual personal information at the end Of the form, not at the beginning of the form. Now, short form is always going to convert easily, but also Determining which forms you want to use. There's lots of plugins Like contact seven. I know the guys downstairs Ninja forms. They also do forms. Or you might want to Have your developer do your own form in javascript. Something that we do big on all our forms is we have Validation. We work with a company called Newstar and they'll know if the email is not real. They'll know if the phone number is disconnected. And so that prevents the lead from going into the crm. And that's a good thing because you don't want your sales People spending valuable time calling bogus leads, which is Usually about 10, 15% of what's entered into most forms. So getting data validation is important. And some of it, you can actually just do it on your own. For example, in our forms, if you type in your zip code, The city and state auto populate. That makes it easier for Your user than having to type it out. Especially if we're talking about mobile device. Oh, yeah. I actually wanted to point out the blue apron. In the blue apron example, as you can see, they actually do Have the menu links at the top, the buttons. And the reason they do so, and i talked to the people at Their company, is that this was like a new service. And so they can't really educate the consumer, the user, Just on a landing page. So they decided to do that. And then this would be like a click-through landing page, Because you can see you click the join now. Then at the next page, it asks you for your information Instead of it up front. Optimization tips. So integrating your landing page form with the crm, like Salesforce or email service provider like constant contact. Marketing automation like hub spot. I mean, this is very important Because when you're doing a marketing campaign on a landing Page and you're sending tens and thousands of clicks a day, The speed to contact is absolutely crucial. People are not going to wait around. Actually, there's a study from MIT that shows after five and a half minutes, from the time Somebody clicks, let's say, get a quote, after five and A half minutes, the chances of you ever getting in touch with That person is decreased by 64%. So i know most of us are busy And you know, sales teams are not always going to respond Very quickly, but one way that you can overcome that is by Putting in some marketing automation, auto responders. The what to test when you're doing the ab testing Basically colors, the images and the call to action is What you want to test. No paragraphs, obviously. Use bullets, and that's the ab testing there. This is an actual campaign that we did for empire today, and Their whole goal was basically to get estimates scheduled right On their site, and so as you can see, there's four different Steps to the process. Apparently, james bond likes Heineken. But yeah, i mean, this is A great campaign right here, right target audience. They considered location where they're going. There was a very heavy page search as well as social media Campaign around this when it came out. And then yeah, what channels are you going to consider? Is it going to be facebook? Is it going to be e-mail Marketing? Page search? Those are all areas. But one area that you might consider is putting together An affiliate program where people are actually driving Traffic to your site. And a good source for that are Bloggers. So you might use a banner or Something like that. The ad designs, they must be Consistent with your brand and your actual website. Emphasizing the benefits and not the features. That's very important as well. Here's another campaign from Mayflower. They focused on reviews, which is Real important. Adding testimonials. And a big thing i think david talked about yesterday in one Of the tracks is putting an ssl certificate on your site. We'll do that for the landing pages as well, because That's a trust factor for some people, okay? Limiting the social media links. I mean, most guys who build Landing pages are big on social media links. I don't like them. And if i do put them, it's at the footer.  And if you do a video, don't put just a link from YouTube or facebook or wherever you're hosting it. Actually ask your developer to put it on your site. Because the only other thing that you're going to get from That is the data from youtube, which is not that important Anyways. What you want is to convert on Your page. Here's a great campaign from Airbnb. And as you can see, the form is Done going across instead of vertically. Which, again, this would be click-through type of landing Page as well. And last, measuring, this is a Part that a lot of people miss when they're either doing their Marketing campaign or building their website, or in this case Some lead gen campaign using a landing page, is the analytics. You need to install the code in there and tracking codes, Pixels, whatever you need to do and be able to look at that Daily and track it to see if it's actually working. So that's very important. And then that's it. Once you launch that campaign, track it, analyze the data And tweak it again and optimize it until you're ready to go. I mean, we've had landing pages that took us six months to get it Right in multiple marketing campaigns, and then all of a sudden You saw conversion go from 5% to 7% to 9%. Just small tweaks. So, and that's it. That's my presentation. And thank you. Questions? No, it doesn't. That's a great question. No, it doesn't stay like that. It actually goes back. Right, exactly. No, so only on the desktop do you see it this way. I believe on certain tablets, the largest ones, you see it like this as well. Yeah. Any other questions? Yes, on your actual website. Yeah, on the website.  Right. Oh, it doesn't matter where it's hosted. No, yeah. Thank you.