WEBVTT - 32 years jail for murder he didn’t commit: Evaristo Salas Pt.1 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.920 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:08.080 Detective see a side of life the average persons never 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.120 exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.040 For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.240 That's what I did for a living. I was a 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.560 homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.160 I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.439 The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.800 from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.479 and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.640 of the content and language might be confronting. That's because 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.680 no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.400 Join me now as I take you into this world. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.519 Welcome to another episode that I Catch killers. Now, can 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.400 you imagine spending over twenty years in prison for a 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.720 crime you didn't commit, going into that prison as a 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.840 teenager and coming out as a middle aged man. It's 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.520 hard to comprehend how he would survive such an injustice. Well, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.000 today we're going to speak to someone that that happened to. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:10.080 Today's guest is ever Risto Salis, a teenage boy of 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.840 Mexican Descent, who was convicted and in prison for the 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.400 murder of Jose Aurelio in California in the United States 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:22.000 in nineteen ninety five. Everisto always maintained his innocence regarding 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.039 this violent crime, but when he was just sixteen, he 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.959 was convicted and sentenced thirty two years and nine months 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.720 in an adult prison. After years of legal battles, he 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.520 was officially exonerated of the crime in twenty twenty three. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.240 We're going to talk to Everisto about his life before 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.440 during the following his release from prison. It's a fascinating story. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.840 We're also going to examine miscarriages of justice and the 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:48.960 need for scrutiny in. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:49.880 The legal process. 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.280 I have no doubt you're going to find this a 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.880 heavy discussion, but I think when you hear what he's 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.160 got to say, you might also find some inspiration in 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:04.120 his story. Everista Sallas, Welcome to I Catch Killers. 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:05.440 Nice to be with you. 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:07.000 Well, look, I really. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.720 Appreciate you you coming on the podcast because we had 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.040 a chat before we started, and I pointed out the 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.359 fact that I was a homicide cop for a long time. Now, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.600 of all people to have resentment, distrust or whatever in 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.840 regards to talking to a cop. So I appreciate you, appreciate. 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.079 You coming on, thank you for having me. I really 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:26.680 appreciate it. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.720 Okay, Well, I got to say up front, you got 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.640 every right to be bitter and resentful. Like going in 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.960 the prison as a young fella aged what sixteen two 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:43.360 days in the sixteenth year, sentenced to thirty two years 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.960 and nine months imprisonment, I think it was, yeah, and 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.160 sentence as an adult, even though you're a kid at 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.480 at sixteen and an adult prison, that's a pretty heavy 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:55.880 situation to find yourself in. 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.400 Yeah, it definitely was. And the age of peteen, I 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.840 couldn't really comprehend the magnet to that situation. Even the 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.200 time that they had given me was too big of 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.919 a number for me to understand at that moment. And 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.359 what's strange about that is my ignorance as a child. 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.080 It actually prevented me kind of from really dealing with 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.000 it emotionally, and that helped me in a sense, because 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:18.920 I think if I really understood the magnitude of what 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.440 I was facing, I might have crumbled under that pressure. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.720 Yeah that's interesting you say that, but you are naive 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.440 at that age. You really have no appreciation what the 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.560 world's about, and so the full ramifications of what faced 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.160 you for the next thirty two years probably didn't really 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:35.640 sink in. 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.120 Yeah, the first two or three years, I kind of 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:41.880 lived in that ignorance, you know, And I think that 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.160 was a way that I protected myself. I think thinking 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:46.960 about what took place and what happened to me in 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.760 my life was too big for me, not only to 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.600 understand but to deal with. At that moment. I didn't 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.040 have really the experience or the understanding of how to 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.400 deal with that emotionally and mentally. And even here I 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.520 was sitting in a place I've never been, a hostile 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.560 environment where everything and everyone seemed to be trying to 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.839 take advantage in one form of another. And I think 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.400 that as a child, I dealt with to the best 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:16.599 way I could, and that was intervention. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.080 The fact I sit here talking to you now, and 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.440 I've heard you talk on in other interviews and read 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.640 a bit about you, the fact that you've escaped through 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:31.520 that experience that you've gone through and don't have a 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.200 resentment and an anger, and that maybe I'm wrong, but you, 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.200 to me, you come across as someone that Okay, well, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.480 that was a big setback in life of the huge dimensions. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.680 But you don't seem to carry a bitterness and a resentment. 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.080 Is that Where does that mindset come from? 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.680 Well, it was a choice. I mean it became a 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.880 choice in prison because that resentment was there, and that 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.080 was that was a second phase of what I had 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.479 to go through. Once I begin to understand, once I 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.599 got older and matured and mentally, I begin to see 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.839 what happened to me, what took place, and what came 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.000 was anger and bitterness, anger with the system. I didn't 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:12.880 know at that time that the cop had set me up. 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.479 I just assumed that it was just a part of 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.480 this long struggle that had dealt with in my life 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.240 of just you know, life just throwing in these punches 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:23.040 at me. And it was another one of those things. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.520 And I grew angry with everything around me, and it 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.440 took I think it was it was dipping into that 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.039 madness and that anger and that frustration that led me 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.240 down a path in prison to a point in my 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.640 life where where I was I was isolated, I couldn't 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.720 function mentally, and I had to make a choice at 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.000 that moment, a moment of a kind of a self 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.960 preservation of how I wanted to live my life. Because 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.480 I was already in the cage physically and at that moment, 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.000 living in anger. I was in the cage mentally too, 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.080 and I decided at that moment that I had to 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.440 rise above them. I had to make the choice, a 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.400 conscious decision, to say, you know what this happened to me. Okay, 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.039 I can't change it at this moment. I can fight 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.120 to change it, but I don't have to live my 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.560 life mentally as I'm still in a prison. I can 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:12.840 find a way to free myself and begin to live. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.880 And it was a choice, you know, and that choice 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.440 was hard, you know, for me to accept. But I 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.080 decided that I wasn't going to hold on to anger, frustration, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.920 and hatred because that in itself was the prison, and 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.720 that was a prison that I created for myself. And 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:29.839 I had to let go then. And I had to 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.960 look at the most sporable things in my life, not 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.159 just the wrongful conviction, but everything prior to that, and 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.200 I had to forgive with the genuine forgiveness in order 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.640 for me to live, in order for me to find myself, 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.240 in order for me to become the person I needed 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.760 to be that had to go, and that was a 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:48.520 choice that I had to make, and I had to 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.320 be willing to say, you know what, I don't know 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.960 why this happened or what was behind it, but it 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:57.520 doesn't matter to me because I'm going to find a 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.599 way to live and live in peace in this place. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.520 And when I made that decision, I had I had 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.520 to kind of make the decision every single day because 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.719 that anger with Flerero. But that was probably the most 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:12.679 screen moment in my entire life in prison, was letting 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.000 gore that burden, because that had carried me down, that 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.160 had almost destroyed me and didn't allow me to see 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.000 beyond the file of the pain and suffering that I 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.160 was going through. But once I let a go, I 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.040 could see with clarity and I could make decisions that 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.880 they were better my life rather than destroyer. Yeah. 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.800 I suppose it's the one thing that you can control, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.520 isn't it. There was nothing else about your life that 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.240 you could really had control of the environment that you 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.480 were in, But you can control your own own emotions 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.400 and own thought process. So we're going to delve deep 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.600 into that during the podcast how you worked your way 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.480 through that anger. But let's get the audience to find 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:51.840 out a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.560 what was your upbringing like, and tell us your story. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.560 Basically, I was born in reised in Sunny Start last time. 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:01.840 My entire life there to the age of fifteen until 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:07.240 I was charging and wrongly convicted. The environment that I 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.560 grew up in was pretty hostile. I grew up with 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.280 a mother who was an alcoholic. My biological father was 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.840 never in my life. I knew who he was, but 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.520 he was a stranger to me. He lived in the 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.280 same small town that I lived in. The town that 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.680 I live in was only about ten thousand people at 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.920 the time. It's only about sixteen thousand now, so it's 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:32.200 a small, conservative, farming town. It was kind of probably 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.000 about fifty or sixty percent of Hispanic back when I 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.240 was in the nineties. Now it's up to about eighty 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.160 or ninety percent of his Spanic. So the environment was 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.160 starting with my parents. Being with my mother who was 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.559 so chaotic and in the drugs and alcohol. That was 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.720 the beginning of the struggle of my life because everything 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:53.600 that she brought into her life she brought into our 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.679 life and I had to accept it. She split with 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.800 my stepfather who raised me and who I believe is 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:01.600 my real father. And I don't call him my stepfather, 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:03.480 but I do that just for clarity. And he was 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.600 probably the only thing stable in my entire life. But 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.480 he split with my mother when I was about five 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.640 or six. But their relationship was pretty chaotic because my 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.960 mother would leave and then come back drunk around some 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.000 kind of drugs, and so it was. It was a 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:25.240 constant feeling with insecurity. When they split, my mom decided 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.319 that she didn't want me no more for whatever reason. 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.920 I came back from school one day and I couldn't 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.959 find anybody there. My sisters weren't there. I have one 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.800 older sister, one younger sister, and one younger brother. At 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.560 the time, you know, I was seven or eight, my 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.160 younger brother. I think i'd just been been born. And 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.600 nobody was there when I returned from home. And at 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.240 first I thought, maybe they're in the back room, so 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.600 I went to the ground. I couldn't find anybody, and 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.559 I began to panic, and I began to yell from 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.440 my mom. I couldn't I couldn't yell her name, and 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.920 she didn't append then she just I couldn't find it. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.400 Where and then once I kind of just gave up 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.200 and started kind of sobbing in one of the rooms, 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.760 stinking that maybe she had just left me. I mean, 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.480 everything was still there, but I just couldn't make sense 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:10.680 of the situation. And then my mom peered out of 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:15.600 nowhere and kind of just walked past me and kind 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.080 of had this like she didn't see me. So I 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.280 felt this kind of this this moment of happiness, like, oh, 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:21.800 there's my mom. So I jump up and I kind 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.280 of chase her down, and she turns around and looks 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.480 at me, and she had this kind of weird look 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.160 in her eyes and it was kind of glossed over. 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:31.520 And I had seen my mother, you know, high and 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.000 on drugs, and she didn't seem like she was on that, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.280 but there was something different about what she had in 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:38.720 her eyes. And she looked at me kind of in 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.320 a stoic voice and with no emotion at all. She 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.640 looks at me and she says, you're a bad kid, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.400 and I want you anymore. And it was that direct 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.000 and that cold, and I couldn't really process what she 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.600 was saying. It didn't really make sense to me, and 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.120 she kind of just turned and walked away, and I 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.120 kind of sat there, kind of lost in my thoughts, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.000 sticking understanding what this really meant. And it felt like 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.400 it just happened, you know, five or ten minutes later, 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.280 but it must have been twenty or thirty minutes later. 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:09.600 The cops showed up at my house, and he said 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.760 it was two cops and they came into the house 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.720 and and I didn't really understand what they were doing there, 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.400 but as they approached me, my mom kind of spoke 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.560 to him and then she kind of like looked back 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:24.200 at me, and they kind of started walking towards me. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.160 I got this kind of gun wrenched feeling like, oh, 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.319 they were going to take me for some reason. And 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:31.400 they were there. They were there to take me to 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.360 the foster gear. My mom had given me up and 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.840 didn't me anymore, and they literally took me out of 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.040 the house, kicking and screaming. I was begging my mother 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.960 at that point, you know, please gonna let them take me. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.240 I was crying, but like I said, she had that 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.600 kind of indifference look in her eyes, and they pulled 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.760 me out. I was screaming and crying. They were trying 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.360 to control me. They handcuffed me but the cuffs were 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.440 too big and they were just slipping off my hands, 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:01.480 and so they threw me in the back of the 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.160 cop car, kind of rough handled me a little bit, 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.920 tried to tie me in with the with the seat 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.880 belt and ended up getting the cuffs on me in 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.600 some kind of weird way, and then just took me, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.880 took me to the police station. I still couldn't really 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:22.479 figure out where I was going, what was happening, And 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:24.520 then they said to me, all I wouldn't tell him 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.480 my name, my mother. My mother had told most things, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.079 but I just kind of was crying and kind of inconsolable. 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:31.280 And then they took me in the back of cop 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.280 corn or transported me to Yakima County, which is the 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.199 city of Yakoma, which is about forty five miles away. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.160 Still didn't know where I was going. We got halfway there, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.240 they turned around, and at that moment, I felt like, oh, okay, 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.640 maybe my mom had to change my mind, and I 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.360 felt kind of a sense of hope. And when they 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.880 brought me back, they took me my dad. My stepdad 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:55.880 looked in sunny. He must have got word. I don't 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:57.840 know how he found out, but they had heard that 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:02.240 my mother had had CPS or you know, the chop 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.839 tech servant and taking me somehow he got ahold of 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:06.720 the police station. They took me to my dad's house, 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.040 and I remember pulling up at my dad's house and 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:12.760 my dad comes to the back of the cop corn 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.880 as soon as he's seen me. I remember the looking 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.920 his eyes he had, like his face kind of it 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:21.640 was just like a beat sadness when he see me, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.000 and he kind of put his head down and kind 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.160 of just started crying. And he says to me, and 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.080 I'm crying. I'm screaming that camp you know I mean. 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:29.959 And he says to me, tried to call me down. 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.120 He says, he said, your mother loves you. She's just 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.439 in a bad place right now. And I didn't really 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.640 understand iver. I didn't understand that until I got a 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.199 little bit older what that meant. But I remember him 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.080 picking me up, kind of crying at the same time, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.920 and then taking me into the house. And that began 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:50.840 the process of me living with my dad and my 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:52.440 mother kind of not want having to do with me. 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.040 She lived in the same town and not too far away. 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.280 But I think it was two days later I ran 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.040 away and went back to her house. She called the 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.080 cops on me again, and it was the same traumatic 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.520 event almost for about two or three weeks, and then 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.400 the last time, I just decided that, yeah, I get 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:14.480 it now. And my father, I mean, he had to work. 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:19.000 He worked, you know, twelve to thirteen hour days, but 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:23.880 he had a house, and there was stability there. When 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:25.920 I was living with my mother, we were always they 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.560 would always shut the water off, We're always hungry. She 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.360 would leave us sometimes for two or three days at 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:32.960 a time. We'd be just me and my older sister, 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.200 my younger sister by ourselves, and then she would bring 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.120 these men in sometimes and or get to get into 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.680 these relationships where she had really abusive ment, and I 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.080 seemed to be a target of all them. I don't 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.760 understand what the reason was behind that. And so living 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.240 with my dad, even though it was away from my mom, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.320 who I loved, there was stability there. There was a 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.000 commonists there, there was a structure. And although my call 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.880 had to work all these hours, he had this strength 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.040 towards him, the way he carried himself, and he carried 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.040 himself in an honorable way. He wasn't really a religious man. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.400 He was a moralistic man and pragmatic and everything he did. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.920 And you know, so he wasn't a big speaker either. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:17.640 He didn't speak a lot. I didn't talk a lot, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.760 but his actions spoke valuance to me. And the way 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.520 he carried himself is how he affected me the most, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.320 which I didn't see at that time, but that came 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.360 later when I was in prison, and so that was 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.680 kind of the environment that I grew up in. That 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.800 The other side of that was that the gangs have 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.040 already kind of began to form, you know, began to 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.280 grow in the town. You know, they originated in California 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.400 and brought down your individual to removing down here. So 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.680 that was the other act. My father, being the good 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:51.680 man he was, he still had to work, so he 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.160 was gone the majority of the day when I get 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.280 back from school, which left the void in my arm, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.440 and I was alone. It was just me and him 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:01.400 for the first years, and then my older sister came 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:03.600 to live with us. Then my younger sister came to 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:04.880 live with us. So my dad end up raising all 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.800 three of us by himself. But again it was he 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.240 was gone at work. He had to work to support 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.560 us and and and you know, get us things we need. 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.400 What ended up happening was that it was the gang 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:19.360 that filled that void. You know, there was a part 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.160 of me that that I felt missing because my mother 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.240 was gone and I was looking for that love and 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.280 other things and looking for that acceptance and other things. 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.560 They were going through similar things in their own household, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.000 and it was the tragedy and the trauma of that 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.160 moment that caused us to band together. And when I looked, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:38.800 when I look back at that moment, it wasn't so 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.920 much that we decided, oh, we're going to be this 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.080 gang or that kind of stuff. It was it was 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.680 the trauma of our lives and the understanding that we 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.560 had with each other that formed the bond that in 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.240 the you know, morphing into the gang and all that 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:51.800 kind of stuff. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.920 The YU described that it's understainable that I age, and Yeah, 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.640 I just want to say to you, what a tough, 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:01.280 tough start in life. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.640 But you're lucky that you had your your father. There 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:05.359 was stepfather there. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.800 It's interesting how you talk about getting drawn into gangs, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.960 because I hear on this podcast and throughout my career, 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.760 I saw that happen so many times. It's that sense 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.960 of wanting to belong, to be part of something, to 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.600 feel you know, you've got your tribe basically, some people 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.080 that care for you and look out for you. So 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.800 what sort of stuff did you get into when you 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.160 found your way in the gangs? And what age were 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:30.120 you at this time? 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.760 I was about eleven when I started going to hang 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.239 around with them. I didn't really get it onto two. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.560 I was like twelve. But the stuff that we did 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.160 was very juvenile in the beginning. It was basically just 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.760 walking around protecting each other, fighting with the arrivals here 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.360 and there. Which was strange about it because the town 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:51.399 was so small that we went to school with all 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.199 these kids and they were friends prior, and so it 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.640 wasn't really serious. In the beginning. We were fighting, there 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.360 were plates were really that bad, and oh you got 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.199 med this and that kind of stuff. And as you know, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.239 as I got to about the age of thirteen, then 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.240 it became started getting serious. You know, then people started 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.920 shooting at us. And the gang I was part of 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.120 was very small and it was an opposition of all 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.040 the other gangs in the entire time, and so there 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.560 was about two streets that we didn't control, but that's 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:21.520 where we kind of lived at. That was our neighborhood. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.239 And so in any direction I went, I would get 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.480 chased or drump or shot at. And that's just the 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.600 way it was. And it was people that I knew 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.240 that I grow, our parents knew each other. That's how 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.680 small it was, you know. But now we hated each 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.199 other because of these gangs that brought this in. And 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.240 then it was just a weird kind of mixture of 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:44.560 us dealing with each other and finding each other for 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.200 no apparent reason. We were too young to kind of 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.160 challenge the challenge. That kind of mindset or it came from. 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.359 All we knew was once it started that we hated 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:54.960 this guy boy he jumped you this time, or I 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.120 don't like him because you know, he hit me this time, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.000 or he shot at me this time. And that's what 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.800 it became. The kind of daily things that we did 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:06.160 was just kind of walk around. Sometimes we would steal things, 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.360 you know, or break in the cars or tag up 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.760 and just kind of juvenile kind of de linklents. And 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.720 then since we were so outnumbered, we were always on 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.160 the defense. There was no offensive on any kind of way. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.919 You know, I mean, there was everywhere we went, and 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.920 I was very I was really small, and I got 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.400 pretty much beat up every single fight that I got into. 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.040 There was and there was no I couldn't challenge these 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.480 guys that were just too big, and it would always 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.520 seem that they I don't know if it was because 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.879 I would I would accept I fight them even though 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.200 I didn't want to, and I would just take the beating. 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.439