Prison Inside Out

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hector, bravo, unhinged chaos is now in session
.
Welcome back, warriors.
Another banger for you guys.
Man, today, the cat drug innone other than a former
lieutenant from the CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections and

(00:22):
Rehabilitation you may know himfrom TikTok Corrections Unlocked
Alex Duran.
What up, alex?
What's up Hector?
Thanks for making that drivedown here yesterday, dude.
I appreciate it, man,appreciate it.
So, bro, let's start from thebeginning, because I know
there's a lot to talk about andyou have a lengthy career with
CDCR.
Yeah, where did you grow up at?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
dude, I originally grew up in Fresno, california,
lived there for a few years andthen I moved to Visalia, lived
the majority of my time thereand then, as I kind of started
my career, I ended up living inSalinas for a little bit Fucking
Fresno, visalia and Salinas manAll the rough areas.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Right yeah, how far are they away from each other?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So Fresno, it's pretty much Central Valley.
So Visalia is about 45 minutesfrom there, okay, and then from
Visalia to Salinas about two anda half Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah.
And then you told me youstarted working in the jail
first county jail, yeah.
So I originally started workingin Kern County about 2012, the
beginning and I worked there forabout a year in Bakersfield as
a detention deputy InBakersfield Mm-hmm, was there
more than one detention facilityin Bakersfield, or that was

(01:35):
like the one?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah.
So you had like your downtownjail, okay, and then you had
your big jail, which was off ofLurdo, that's the one you worked
at?
Yeah, that's where we housedthe majority of the inmates.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
So basically, once they get processed off the
streets, they go to the firstjail and then they'll get
rehoused in the big jail.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, yeah, but during that time we housed a lot
of inmates there and the AB-109kicked in for the state.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So when I started there, we gotdumped on by at least 500, 600
inmates, so we were justovercrowded in the whole jail.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
How long had you been there before you got dumped on?
Were you working there prior togetting dumped on that jail?
No, that's what I walked into.
You walked into that exactmoment in time.
Yeah, 20 years old.
Because you're young, bro,you're young.
You said you were 35.
Yeah, moment in time, 20 yearsold.

(02:31):
Yeah, because you're young, bro, you're young.
You said you were 35.
Yeah, I'll be 35 in two weeks.
Oh shit, so you're actually 34.
Yeah, yeah, you're young dude.
Yeah, um, wow, bro, 20.
Now.
Did the og deputies tell you ohman, this wasn't like this
prior to you showing up?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
no, um, it was less, less inmates you know, know,
when I started, kern County was,the detention deputies were
real old school, so nobodytalked to you, nobody shook your
hand.
It was one of those just watchand learn.
And the good thing about KernCounty and the jail system is
they had a six week FTO program.

(03:01):
So it was actually really cooland it was good for us to learn,
because every two weeks you didsomething different.
So the first two weeks allyou're doing is watching.
You're not doing anythingbesides watching, and then the
two weeks after that you do halfand half, so you like assist
with half the escorts,whatever's going on for the day,
and then the last two weeksit's all you.

(03:22):
Is there an academy is going onfor the day, and in the last two
weeks it's all you.
Is there an academy?
They have?
Yeah, they have an academy thatyou can go through.
Um, but at the time I know I'msorry they have an academy if
you want to transition to deputyokay, so at that one streets,
yeah, yeah so at that one nightyou just go through their, their
process, their uh, polygraphtest, their uh background
polygraph to work inside of thejail.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Oh, yeah, oh I?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Oh, I wouldn't have made it bro.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I don't know how I did to be honest, but yeah
, not that I'm a criminal oranything, but you know how that
goes, man, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, I originally applied for a bunch of places.
Right out of high school Iworked in the group homes with
juvenile delinquents.
Oh dude, you were built forthis shit.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
oh man, uh, those kids were traumatizing me more
probably there than I did in thestate.
What do you think is worseworking with kids or working
with female inmates?
That's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
They're both I hate them both, you know yeah
speaking of female inmates, well, I started at vsp not to to
jump ahead, but uh, they weretransitioning from vspw to VSP,
so I got a little taste of thefemales.
Oh, no, dude.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
We'll get to that once we unravel your county time
.
Yeah, but the county, so whatwould you say?
The tempo was, in comparison tothe state, busy, not busy.
Well, it was really busy.
Violent not violent.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Very violent, yeah.
So, from what I remember, wehad CPOD, which was like our.
You can pretty much label itlike an EOP level four, ad sig.
It was just violent, crazy.
And the shitty thing about thecounty is they have buzzards in
their cells.
So if you work a control booth,that buzzard is going off every
four seconds.
There's no way to you guysdon't have any tricks.
No seconds, there's no way toyou guys don't have any tricks.

(05:06):
No, I mean, you can like muteit.
I think you could screen it out, like where you hold the button
down, but then you have 50other cells.
All fucking right, you knowwhat I mean.
And so, um, yeah, they got alittle bit of everything there
and, uh, you know, from delanoto la, a lot, a lot of
southerners, you know, um, soyou got that whole big fraction
and then we had a tank full ofnortherners so go through real
quick.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
What gangs, real quick, right off the top of your
head, were there um, over there, you had everybody.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
we had our, uh, northerners and a big, big
fraction of southerners.
You know, from delano to um,from delano to la, that's all
southern territory.
So we had a lot of southerners,a lot, we had everybody.
We had a lot of blacks, a lotof whites, and then we had a
minimum um, southerners, a lot,we had everybody.
We had a lot of blacks, a lotof whites, and then we had a
minimum um, a minimum yard fromwhat I remember with, with 20
barracks, big fucking yard and,uh, just chaotic.

(05:52):
Well, you say barracks, werethey bunk beds?
Yeah, just like 200.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Um, who would be passing through DUI people man.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Um, who would be be?
Who gets to stay there?
Oh, anything in anyone.
You know it was so overcrowded.
Um, honestly, they probably hada little bit of everybody right
and, um, it was overcrowded, so, any, I think, like most of the
stadiums that were doing smalltime, like five to ten years,
they just kicked them to thebarracks, no fucking which was a
little scary because we hadguys that thought they were
tough.
You know, we had, um, guys are,oh, I'm, I'm m.
You know, we had guys that were, oh, I'm, ma Right, and we're
like, well, you know, we'regoing to get some dudes from

(06:30):
Corcoran and Kern Valley andthey said they're active and
they're like, well, hold up,hold up From where?
And then, you know, so werethey trying to buff um, bluff
all the youngsters?
Oh, and they, they did.
You know, right, we?
I didn't know any better, I wasbrand new, trying to figure it
all out, right, um, but when allthese state guys started coming

(06:51):
in and they were running stuffon the yards and you kick them
to a county jail so?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
so help me understand this.
There's like, let's say, 100 ofinmates, right?
Who were these guys?
Former state prisoners, werethey brand new, about to hit the
state, or were they just goingto maintain local county time?
What were they made up of?

Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know?
Honestly I'm not too sure, butfrom what I remember, most of
the state inmates we had it wasbecause they were hitting that
five-year term where they onlyhad to do two to five years and
they didn't consider themviolent inmates, depending on
their charges.
Were they violent?
Oh, fuck, yeah, they were veryviolent and actually it was more
of an intimidating factor,because some of these guys we

(07:33):
were getting were running yardsand then you kick them to a
county jail.
So 30 Southerners see an activedude that's running a state
prison they got to serve to himnow Correct.
So they're either going to gettuned up because they were lying
or politicking when theyshouldn't have been, or they're
pretty much.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
So you guys were experiencing that.
Oh yeah, it was fucking crazyActual, influential inmates
coming down from the state andfucking checking these yeah it
was bad.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
So there was just it was a lot of tension.
The officers didn't really talkto anybody.
Luckily, I had a buddy thatworked there.
My buddy, Paco, worked thereand I knew him from when I went
to college in an SJVC and I raninto him at the I forget, I
think it's the max facility,they call it, and you gotta be
OG to work there.
And they fucking held me theremy first day.

(08:23):
So I go work there and theyfucking held me there my first
day.
So I go over there and, uh, realcutthroat, you know, and me I'm
happy, go lucky, fucking wantto learn.
And I'm like, where am Iworking?
And they're like, oh, you'reworking this area, I don't even
remember the names.
And so the officer that I'mworking with is walking by and
I'm like, hey man, how's it?
How's it going?
I'm, I'm, I'm Alex.
He looked at my hand, he lookedat me and just kept walking,

(08:43):
Damn dude.
And I was like all right, andluckily I saw my buddy and I was
like, you know, it was likeseeing your parents.
You're like oh, yeah, yeah.
And he kind of took me underhis wing right there and he said
hey, bro, I'm going to havethis dude work with me today and

(09:05):
you can work with so-and-.
That was kind of my firstexperience with the jails but
yeah, I worked there for about ayear.
It was very violent.
I learned a lot.
I had a bad battery there.
I was assaulted pretty bad bymore than one inmate no, by a
two-fiver, Some dude.
That was like crisis bed crazy.
He battered 40, 50 deputiesthere.
Everybody knew who he was.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
I'm young, trying to prove myself and kind of catch
my flow and I'm like when itcomes to those type of inmates
in your experience, does verbalde-escalation work all the time,
or what kind of language thosetype of individuals understand?

Speaker 2 (09:44):
You know, to a certain extent you know you can
only talk so much to a mentalhealth psych inmate, but most of
the time there's really notalking.
You know whatever's going tohappen is going to happen.
Well, I get it.
I just wanted you to hear himsay it.
Yeah, that's just.
You know, I've seen it all.
You've seen it all.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
You've seen psychologists, mental health
yeah, Everybody come in and dotheir part and then at the end
of the day, we're dealing withit.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
At the end of the day , it's going to end the way he
wants it to end, yeah.
Yeah, he's going to pretty muchget what he wants with the way
prisons ran down days, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
So CDCR?
Was that your ultimate goal, ordid you stumble across it?

Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know, in California, when you work for
the jails and and you work forlike private jails and stuff or
maybe it's just me, but I lookedat state cdcr, like you know
the big dogs, like that's whereyou want to be you know they
make the most money, the bestbenefits and from what we hear,
it's like shit's rocking androlling, you know.
So we look at you guys likefucking spartans and shit, you
know.
And what year was this?

Speaker 1 (10:39):
2012.
Okay, because, yeah, we hadthis conversation yesterday.
We were like dude.
At one point in time, cdcr usedto be the fucking epitome.
Oh yeah, like countrywide, theother states would look at us
like, hey, that's the standardto be a fucking guard, right.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Oh yeah, Like when you guys would come in the
transportation CDC guys wouldcome in to Kern County, you know
, and they're all wearing black,you know, all structured and at
the time they had a lot of hashmarks.
Now you've got one French frytype of transcoffs.
Yeah, those dudes were all theway up.
And you know, the cool thing isall the gold.
It looks intimidating.
You know what I mean?
The gold, all the gold, thegold, brass, the gold.

(11:16):
You know belt keepers?
Yeah, the whistle, you know.
And we see like damn these guys, they look legit.
You know, that's what I want tobe like one day, you know, and
I'm sitting there during theheadlights working the jail like
man.
you know that's where the bigmoney's at as far as a
correctional and benefits andstate yeah so that was kind of
my goal, you know, to work forthe state you know how long was

(11:40):
your process for CCR, fromapplication to academy.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
What was your process ?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
for CDCR from application to academy.
So when I originally applied, Iactually took the test, the
written test, and passed it.
Two months later I get a callfrom a sergeant in Fresno.
He's like hey, bro, when youtook this test you were only 20.
You weren't 21.
I was like, yeah.
He's like so it's kind ofviolated our standards.
You have to be 21 to take thattest.

(12:05):
I thought you had to be 21 atthe time of the academy.
I think they might have changedit, yeah.
But at that time he was like Ican't push you through, but what
we're going to do because thisis a little bit of an issue is
we're going to go ahead and justcancel your stuff and we're
going to let you reapply in twomonths or three months when it
comes out again.
So I didn't know any better.
So I'm like, all right,whatever.
So when I was 21, I applied,passed the test again and then

(12:30):
they went on freeze.
So I just kind of laid low forabout a year, I think, working
in the jails.
And then I had that badincident.
I was on leave for like threeweeks and then I get a call
offering me a prison to go toAcademy.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Did they offer you a prison or numerous prisons,
three prisons, which?

Speaker 2 (12:49):
ones.
They said, hey, you're inCentral Valley, we have a VSP
and me I thought that wasPleasant Valley.
So I'm like, oh fuck, yeah, bro, let's do it Kalinga.
And they're like, yeah,whatever, you start in three
weeks.
That's the kicker is, this isgoing to be the first academy
that's going to be ran.
Since the freeze We've only had, like I think, one academy just

(13:11):
went through, so they're juststarting up again.
And yeah, I just fucking tookit you know.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
So you ended up going to the academy in Galt, yeah,
and then you graduate and youended up touching down at Valley
State Prison.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, and the whole time in the academy they're
talking about Valley StatePrison and the women's prison
and I'm like I'm going to aman's prison and they're like
nah, bro, you're going to VSPW,it's changing to VSP.
So I was confused where thehell I was going for the first
two months.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
The sergeants at the academy were talking about
Valley State.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, you know how everybody has their little
placard that says what prisonthey're from or going to yeah.
So the whole time I was tellingeverybody I was going to
Kalinga, to Pleasant Valley oh,that's what you were telling
everybody, yeah.
And they're like, hey, bro,there's nobody here going to
Pleasant Valley.
I said, me dog, me dog.

(14:06):
And they're like nah, man, yourshit says vsp.
And I said, yeah, bro, pleasantvalley.
They're like, no, you got the,you got the acronym backwards,
it's fucking valley state prison.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
And I was like oh, yeah, what's the other one?
Pvsp, yeah, pvsp.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Homie, you're dyslexic, yeah bro so luckily
they didn't figure that out inthe process.
But, dude, I was like fuck it.
And so I'm like, well, shit,let me, how far is that from my
damn house?
Dude?
Because I, because I'm likeKalinga's, like 45 minutes, and
I was already stressing aboutthat, yeah, and you know so
fucking so how far was that fromyour pad, like was it actually
closer, or?

(14:34):
farther.
Oh, it is an hour and 12minutes, 15 minutes.
Yeah, what went through yourhead then?
When you're like, oh, what thefuck?
Yeah, I was just like, hey,dude, like, is there like people
that like do transportation?
I was just trying to figureeverything out, because they
talked about van pulls, carpulls right, and they're like,
yeah, they do that from fresno,bro, but not from visalia.
You're fucking.
I mean, you may want torelocate, type of shit, but you

(14:58):
know that's how it is you know,yeah, you either get a crash pad
, a sancho, I mean yeah you yougotta roll with it and I'm
thinking where the fuck is?
you know, madera chowchilla?
You know it's a small, a smalltown.
There ain't shit out there.
So, uh, yeah, I bought a littlekia and we made it.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Made it work so you fucking have all this experience
from working in the countyfighting fucking eop2 fibers.
You're a big dude, bro.
You're ready.
You're ready, right?
So what do you see when you getthere?
What's your?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
experiences like.
So, you know, when I had thatincident in the county, it
opened up my eyes to what I wasdoing.
You know, it kind of shook me,it scared me and it made me
question myself like, hey, isthis really what I want to
fucking do?
You know, and that's ultimatelywhy I made that transition,
cause I'm like man, if I'm goingto get my ass beat, I want to
get paid a little bit more money.
That makes sense, you know.
So, yeah, so that was mytransition.

(15:53):
Uh, but when I went to Valleystate prison, you know I I was
comfortable talking to inmates,cause in the in the jails, like,
there's a lot of movement.
So every morning I'd be cuffingup at least 40 to 50 inmates
Every morning In the jail, yeah,full shackles, leg restraints,
cuffs everything.
So I was comfortable talkingand cuffing people up.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Well, what kind of talking are you doing as you're
cuffing up, fucking 50 people?
They're all going to court, sojust giving them instructions.
Or are you actually conversingwith these dudes?

Speaker 2 (16:25):
A little bit of both.
I mean, at first it's, you know, uh, just the bread and butter.
Turn around, cuff up, pick yourleg up, right you know, open
your mouth, check them realquick and then, as we're because
we got I gotta take them all tor&r.
We talk, okay, hey bro, whatare you doing?
Oh, man, they got me for this.
I'm like, oh, that sucks, and um, not to backtrack, but I
actually ran into a formercorrectional officer that was in
jail and I took him back andforth to R and R, at least for a

(16:47):
month, and he kind of gained meand schooled me.
Oh, no shit, yeah, he was a, hewas a, he was a bad-ass CEO.
And dude he was, he looked likea straight gangster.
You know what I mean.
And I didn't.
I thought he was a gangster andthey started slowly telling me
that, hey, that dude's a fucking.
Um, he's a CEO.
You know he got caught up withsome shit, but what the good
thing about it was is he waslike hey, alex, check this.
Hey, alex, those Southernersover there dope, uh, you know.

(17:25):
So you were fucking learningdude.
Yeah, I was getting gained by aninmate.
Yeah, and uh, you know, peopleall don't talk to inmates, this
and that.
That's how you learn.
Whether you want to or not,there's a variety of ways to
learn.
Yeah and uh, but I I neverreally talked to him, I just
listened and um, he's like hey,when you pat down guys, make
sure you do this and that.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Were there any?
Did he ever attempt to gainsomething from you?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
No, and that's where you know everyone always said
this is it's always going to bea catch.
He's going to try to hook youRight, but he never did that.
You know he was always straightwith me.
To add to that as well, becauseyeah we're always taught
inmates will game you.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
They'll game you.
Don't ever trust a fuckinginmate.
And while that is kind of true,don't ever trust an inmate,
right?
You don't want to get led tothe slaughter.
There are times where thosedudes have actually kept their
word and not came at you withsome bullshit.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
No, and you know I look at it like this Hector, if
you're a newer officer, you'vegot to understand how to play
the game.
You're going to get manipulatedand you have to learn how to
play.
Once you have that experienceand you know how to talk to an
inmate, you know how to build arapport.
I've got no problem talking toinmates because they know where
that line, where we draw thatline.
But if you're brand new and youdon't understand the game, oh,

(18:39):
you're going to get tossedaround like a dirty magazine.
Bro.
They're gonna work you day inand day out.
I see it, oh, we seen it.
Um, and that's the.
That's the problem with theyounger generation is they see a
senior cop talking to an inmateand they're like okay, but they
don't understand what that dudedid to build that rapport.
You know, and I think that's aproblem with some of the younger
cops no, you that's a fucking x.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
I'm glad you said that, bro.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
That's an excellent point yeah, and so I feel
comfortable, you know, just notnot talking, but like letting
inmates know what was going on.
And I felt like the more yourelate to inmates uh, the
program for the day or talk tothem, the less tension you have
but you're also a dude that hasgood command presence.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
I mean just me conversing with you like you're
you're, you know, I mean yourposture, your, your tone.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
So that's huge also.
Yeah, well, you know, when Istarted though, you know I've
always been a little weird andkind of like a nerd, but when I
started I wanted to fit in, youknow.
So I remember some dude onMarketplace was selling like an
old school jumpsuit.
So I'm like, oh, I want to looklike that.
So I bought this jumpsuit, bro.
It was like three times my size, yeah, and I'm wearing it,
thinking I'm the shit.
And where I got clowned, likemy first week.

(19:45):
They're like whose fuckingjumpsuit is that dude?
I was like it's mine.
They're like no, it's not dude,like you.
Just, we all know you juststarted.
That jumpsuit's like older thanyou.
Oh, it was a used jumpsuit.
Yeah, because I wanted to fitin, because all the cool guys
were wearing, like you know, uh,jumpsuits that were faded I
could relate.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
could relate, man, cause I wanted to scuff up my
leather to make it look like Ihad some time in.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
But um, no, you know most of my little structure that
I have.
I'm not too structured, but, uh, I started trading.
I got um when I was younger.
I got beat up real bad andjumped by a bunch of kids and I
remember um walking from theskate park to my house, which
was like five miles away, andthey took my skateboard, they
took my bike, they jacked you.
Oh, they beat the shit out ofme, yeah, but they also jacked
you as well, yeah, God damn bro.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
So I'm walking.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
You know, I was like 12 years old, 13 years old, I
had blood everywhere, whatever,and this dude hits me up, and
you know.
I'm like hey, man, you all right?
I said no, no, not really.
And he said, hey, you see thatbuilding right there.
And I was like, yeah, and Iknew what it was.
It was a little jujitsu shop atthe time in Visalia.

(20:51):
He said, hey, why don't youcome over here tomorrow at 6 pm?
And I was like, okay, you know.
So I went over there at 6 pmand I thought it was the jujitsu
class that he taught, but itwasn't.
Um, he teaches a old hawaiianself-defense uh class and at the
time I didn't know who he was.

(21:11):
But he let me train there forfree for a whole year, fuck yeah
and then, uh, they ended upgoing out of business.
So he was doing some hardcoretraining in his garage and,
remind you, I'm the only kidthere, all these guys are adults
and he trains like a real hard.
Kajukimpo it's called, kaju Pitis his style of it, and dude's
a monster.
But it taught me discipline.

(21:33):
It taught me how to fight andbe comfortable, how to deal with
men, you know, and I looked atthe dude almost like a father,
you know, at the time.
So that helped me out a lot inthe prison system, just being
comfortable with talking toinmates.
And then at the time, so thathelped me out a lot in the in
the prison system, just beingcomfortable with talking to
inmates and at the same time,dealing with them if you need to
right, because I'm not a bigdude, you know, I've always had,
I struggled with, you know uh,having the look.

(21:54):
But, uh, when you're dealingwith somebody and they know your
strength, they know, uh, whatyou're capable of, it just kind
of sets the tone and you don'treally have to like flex or act
hard.
You know uh.
But yeah, vsp was uh.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
So level two the whole prison was level two.
The whole prison all four yards.
There's four yards.
Yeah, what were the yardsstructured?

Speaker 2 (22:14):
abcd.
That's it.
And then they have a a big mainyard where all the yards they
open.
They all open their gates andthe officers stand there at this
is at the time and they all patthem down and they can all go
to the main yard.
No, hold on which was the?

Speaker 1 (22:28):
stupid.
Hold on.
Yeah, you have four fuckingyards, one main recreational
yard and every inmate from everyyard can attend that same
recreational yard.
Yeah, you see the problem withthat 100% dude yeah 100 fucking
percent.
Yeah, 100 fucking percent, yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
So that was kind of like.
You know Now did incidentsarise from that?
I mean, it was real low level,we didn't have a whole lot of
incidents, but it was a lot ofdrug trafficking.
Because I mean, it was like theinmates would tell me hey,
duran, we're going to go to theflea market, and I was like the
flea market's on sundays, wait asecond, you're locked up.

(23:06):
They're like no, the main yard,that's where we go.
You know they call it the fleamarket because they can get
whatever the fuck they want.
That's nuts, dude.
You know inmates that are, uh,doing tattoo work or um,
painting bro oh, bro, they allgo out to the yard and then you
know this dude on a yard thatwants shit from a dude on d yard
now you ain't gotta say toomuch, but is he?

Speaker 1 (23:20):
uh, at the time at the location was the CO
mentality kind of like.
Whatever, let them do theirthing.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
You know, when I went , the majority of the officers
were very tense.
They were very just Tense.
Yeah Well, they were tense.
Tense from what?
Well, you got to remember?
You know, 85% of these copshave never dealt or worked with
a male inmate.
They've all dealt with women?

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Oh, because you were telling me that it transferred
over from females to males, yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
So when I rolled up D-Yard was the last yard full of
women and they were slowlyputting them on buses and
transferring them out towhatever the women's prisons are
.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
So they flushed VSP with all these level two guys
Hold up bro VSP.
With all these level two guysHold up bro VSP.
Yeah, at one point in time, itused to be an all-female
institution.
Oh yeah, is that the one theyrefer to as Chowchilla?
Yeah, okay.
So female prison, chowchilla?
Yeah.
Now, when you got there, that'swhen they got rid of the women
and brought male inmates.
Yeah, and what year was that?

(24:23):
2013, holy shit.
And all the, all the staff weretense because they had never
worked around male inmates.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, and I didn't know this at first, because I'm
new, you know.
But as I'm working thebuildings, I'm telling these
guys hey guys, it's a recall,whatever you know, but and I'm,
you know, I, I always kept itreal with them and they, they
gave me my respect.
All right, youngster, whateverI'm like, all right, buddy, it's
time for you to get off thephone.
Come on, man, whatever I justtalked to them, normal.
Yeah, because you're not a dummy, bro, it's like you know your
lane, but some of those officers, they were just like get off

(24:52):
the phone.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Oh, I hear you now, yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
They didn't have that flow of feeling comfortable and
you Southerners walking aroundwith their shirts off, all
blasted up, it's intimidating.
If you know you've never seenthat I guess I'm glad you're
speaking on that, bro.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, because it's the same thing when, the same
situation, when you'll havelevel four, cops go to a level
two yard and they want to actlevel four.
It's like, hey, relax bro.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, yeah, pump the brakes a little bit, man.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Different mentality.
Or if they flip a level fouryard into a level two, yeah,
they still want to hold thoselevel twos to like a level four
program.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, so you know, when I started there, there
wasn't a whole lot going on.
And you know better than me,like at most prisons, when
there's not a lot of violence,uh, your managers stress your
cops out.
Absolutely.
They want to put the pressureon you guys with um, uniform
inspections.
Uh, you coming to work on time,they start checking you guys
because they're not focused onall the incidents.

(25:49):
You know they got to stay busy.
So, yeah, there wasn't a lotgoing on.
We did get a lot of guystransferring from Salinas Valley
, from Corcoran, from KernValley, and those dudes were
gangster, you know, becausethey've seen it all.
And I remember this one big oldblack dude he was from Corcoran
and you know, he was just likeegging everybody on.
So you're going to let him talkto you, like that man, you

(26:10):
should do something.
And so all the CEOs were like,yeah, I need to do something.
So we're learning from allthese guys.
And I'm just like I know alittle bit.
But I was always told, hey,just watch and observe, you'll
learn more by watching.
And so that was just me.
I'm just watching, like, okay,I ain't doing that, um, but yeah
, it was.

(26:30):
Uh, it was different.
You know, I learned a littlebit.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
There's some good supervisors there, there's some
not good supervisors there, butyou know that's at every prison
oh, I'm glad I'm learning likeI'm learning a lot from you
telling me and not only am Ilearning, bro, but I'm
reminiscing at all the variablesin working inside of a prison.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
So it's just level two, not a whole lot.
I mean, we probably had 100,150 incidents a year, compared
to like Corcoran and SalinasValley, where they have 1,500.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
But it's funny how you bring up the truth about the
different personalities ofcorrectional officers.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, you know, and I've seen a lot of different
personalities, because all ofthem they knew how to deal with
women, and not that they didn'tknow how to deal with men, they
just weren't used to it yetCorrect.
So, me coming in brand new, Iwas like so you're a fucking
sponge.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
There you are, bro Valley State Prison a fucking
sponge.
Where do you go from there?

Speaker 2 (27:20):
next.
So I worked at Valley StatePrison and I met a good cop
named Perez.
He came from Corcoran, so meand him we ran A-yard and I just
kind of watched everything hedid.
Real good cop.
So I learned from him and then,right when I was going to leave
VSP, they just sent me to OP1,crt.
Yeah, so I went to OP1 and youknow the two-week operator thing

(27:46):
in San Luis Obispo, and thelast day of my whole training or
whatever it is, I get a callfrom CTF Soledad and they offer
me a sergeant position.
So I was thinking like fuck,what should I do?
Like I'm about to become anoperator at um VSP.
I finally worked my way up withthose guys.

(28:08):
I was a PTM for about a yearand they finally gave me the
opportunity to train with themand be a part of their team and
I just passed the Academy, youknow.
So I'm all gun hole and um, Ijust fucking took it.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Took what CTF?
Yeah, fuck, dude, I didn't evenknow you were a PTM, bro, so
let's talk about that, becausethe inquiry minds want to know.
Yeah, at what point did youcatch wind of the crisis
response team?
Did any of those membersapproach you and tell you to put
an application, and what wasyour time like as a PTM?

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember some of their names,
but most of your guys that arestructured and look clean,
obviously they're CERT.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
And obviously there's some that are not, but that's
what I saw there at VSP.
I saw guys that looked the part, squared away, yeah, and I'm
like, man, what do you guys do?
And they're like, oh, we'repart of the CRT team and I'm
like, what the fuck is that?
You know what background oranything?

(29:07):
And uh, they put out a flyer,like they do at most prisons hey
, crt tryouts, um, whatever.
So I'm reading it and so I callI think his name was more real
cool dude, he was a sergeant atthe time and I'm like, hey, more
, I want to do this, you know.
And he's like, yeah, bro, justfucking.
You know, this is what it kindof entails.
We can't tell you much.
But you got to run two miles,yeah, be able to shoot bro.
And everybody was so negativeabout it.
They're like you can't do that.
I was like, why not?

(29:28):
They're like, bro, really, lookat you, come on, you're not
that guy.
And I'm like I just want to tryout, you know.
So, honestly, at the time Ireally just did it just to prove
a bunch of assholes wrong, justbecause I'm like, hey, fuck you
Right.
And yeah, so I went out thereand you know I'm like, well, how
do I?
Don't have any militarybackground?
What do I do?

(29:48):
How do I condition myself forthis, you know?
So I just started watching abunch of motivational shit and
Eye of the Tiger shit and juststarted running every day.
Yeah, and I've always liked toshoot.
Shooting's always beensomething I like to do for fun.
And went out there and thetrials were.
You know how it is horrible.

(30:08):
If I can work the shit out ofyou.
Torture, you made me dance, allthis stupid shit and uh, yeah,
I passed.
I was surprised I passed and,um, trained with those dudes,
good group of guys, you know.
Um, what is it?
The other prison next to them?
uh, the women's prison, ccwfyeah yeah, so I trained with
CCWF, esp, um, met those guys, abunch of good group of dudes

(30:29):
and then, um, uh, I hurt myselfso I didn't get get to go to the
first operator academy, um, buthealed up my leg, kept training
, kept training, and then theyfinally sent me to OP1,
graduated OP1 and promoted atthe same time yeah yeah.
So it was kind of like I feltlike I was doing good, you know,
and I was excited for what wasgoing to happen, and then so

(30:52):
that was that was the challenge.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
I got promoted to lieutenant at the op2 academy.
Oh shit, yeah, so I can relatethere.
So then you come back and youtouch down at CTF.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, so it was crazy .
So, uh, yeah, I think two weekslater, uh, I was, I went to see
, pretty much said bye toeverybody, Right, and they're
like what the fuck Didn't youjust pass the Academy?
And I'm like, yeah, bro, fuckyou Bye and cool, took off to

(31:27):
Soledad.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Um, and you know I'm a little nervous because VSP is
all S and Y at the time.
But you know that's one of theperks about the California
Department of Corrections andRehabilitation.
I'm always like bashing it orexposing it, but that's one of
the perks, bro.
The freedom of movement.
If you want to work here, youcan work here.
If you want to be CRT, youcould be CRT.
Yeah, Go wherever the fuck youwant in the state of California.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
You're right and you know.
That's one thing I want to saytoo.
Like, if you decide to be acorrectional officer, there are
so many opportunities and somany things you can do within
the department and just becauseyou don't know anything about it
, don't limit yourself.
Like you can, fucking, youcould do anything you want to do
in the department.
Trust me, you just got to set agoal.
You can't do it?
Just fucking prove them wrong.

(32:02):
It's.
It's not that hard, trust me,uh.
But yeah, I went to solid dadand um as a sergeant as a
sergeant, you know and theydidn't like me.
Who didn't like you?
Uh, I'm not gonna say theydidn't like me, but it was just.
You know, I look like I'mfucking 15 years old, I'm part
of the cert team, an outsider,because they probably wanted
their home, yeah, promote.
So they're like who the fuck isthis fool?
Yeah, and to remind you, I'm anew operator, but you know,

(32:27):
salinas Valley, ctf they don'tjust take anybody.
No, that's probably the hardest, strictest team, okay, so those
dudes train hard and I'm goingto give them the respect because
they have that.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Real quick shout out to the fucking Salinas Valley
CTF CERT team because hands downthroughout the state the number
one team hands down and I onlygot to train with those guys for
like, uh, eight months.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I'm not going to act like I was one of them or part
of them.
I got the privilege to trainwith them and that was about it.
Uh, fletcher was running it atthe time and he was the
commander of the team, and then,via lobos, was the um right
underneath the attack leader.
Yeah, and they said, hey, uh,come up to selena's valley,
we're going to talk to you.
And uh, I'm at work at the time.
So I head up the hill and I meetat the range and, uh, I go to

(33:11):
the, to the little um where theydo all the trainings and stuff
for that room, whatever it'scalled and they're all sitting
down in chairs, like all of theum.
What do you call them?
The team leaders?
Yeah, and um, this isintimidating.
They're all just sitting thereall fucking.
I'm like I think I'm in thewrong room, you know.

(33:31):
And they're like nah, sit thefuck down.
You know what I mean, and youknow they want to interview me.
What are you about?
What have you done?
Why should we put you on ourteam?
You know, they're straight updudes.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Absolutely oh.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
I'm, yeah, I'm tracking bro.
So I'm like, uh, you know,trying to like not piss my pants
, and I'm just like, dude, I'mjust, you know, I just went to
OP1, you know, um, I want to bean operator Like this is what I
want to do.
I want to learn, I want to growand, uh, you know, I don't know

(34:02):
about this cat.
You know he looks a littlejaycattish and Fletcher was like
hey, check it out, be heretomorrow at 3 am.
We're going to put you througha little sums up.
And I was like, oh, my God, sowhat am I going to say?
Right, right, and I'm thinkinglike I'm going to get a free

(34:27):
pass, not at three in themorning, you're not, no, no, so,
yeah, they, uh, I'll neverforget that.
You know, they put me throughit for, like a mini trial.
Yeah, yeah, and um, three inthe morning, get there and I'll
keep it short.
But, man, they, they say we'rejust start off, you're gonna run
your two miles.
I was like, all right, yeah, so, you know, I, you know they're
like, what are you doing?
I was like, oh, you know, I'mgonna put my running shoes on,
like, no, alpha up, no, alpha up, you're going to run your two
miles in all your gear and I waslike I've never done that

(34:48):
before.
That's 30 fucking pounds ofweight.
So I ran my two miles full alphagear and then went to go shoot.
And I'm looking at the you knowthey shoot a Glock 34.
I'm looking at this Glock andthey're like shut the fuck up
and shoot it.
And I was like I've never shota gun with all black irons.

(35:08):
You know and I don't know ifthat was something they did just
to get me to throw me off youknow what did they do?
What was wrong with the sights?
I think at the time we had theonly girl in the.
I never heard of that shit.
Yeah, I've never shot like that, but some people shoot that.
You know where it's.

(35:28):
Just, you have all black sightsand you know I don't know how
that works, I don't shoot it,but I did that day, yeah.
So I ran through the course,did that, and then you know they
fucked.
Cool, you're all right, youknow what I mean.
We'll let you hang with us fora little bit.
Yeah, and some of the otherguys were pissed off.
You know what I mean On theteam.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, they're like, we don't want this fucking kid
here.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
I don't blame them.
That's a consensus.
Dude, I've got bro even onYouTube.
You garnish hate.
You're a sergeant.
Are you working at the prisonwhile you're trying out and
doing back?

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, so at the time and I don't know if it's this
way anymore Salinas Valley hasthe biggest fucking budget for
CERT.
Those dudes train hard.
They train more than anybody inthe fucking state, so we were
training four or five times amonth.
What the fuck?
Yeah, bro, it was cool, and youknow, they have their own
Hummer.
They got a bunch of cool shit.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, badass fucking van.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Have you seen their Hummer?
They have no, it looks likesomething from fucking World War
II and shit.
It's crazy.
So like this is.
One thing that was cool is we'dbe working and then Fletcher
would get on Central ControlRadio and he's all for CRT
purposes.
Only we have an escaped inmatethe outside of Salinas Valley.
Any CRT operator report to thearmory and he did that shit for

(36:46):
fun.
So those dudes were squaredaway.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
You know?
No, definitely fucking squaredaway, bro.
Yeah, so what was it likeworking at CTF at that prison?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
So it was cool.
There was only like two dudeson the whole CERT team from CTF.
The other 32 guys were fromSalinas Valley, so it was an
honor to be considered one ofthem for the short time I was
there.
It was different.
You know, honestly, ctf is areally good prison to work at.
I enjoyed working there.
Everybody was really helpful.

(37:18):
Remind you, I started in thejails where people wouldn't even
shake my hand.
They're like fuck you.
And then I go to CTF.
I had my first incident.
I had three sergeants come upto me hey D Durant, you need
help with anything.
That's how it is, that's how itshould be.
Hey, d, let me do this part.
Hey, I'll do the lockup order.
And I'm thinking like, okay,and it was just really
camaraderie was still there,that's how it should be which

(37:38):
they don't have anymore.
But it was something that mademe feel good as a supervisor.
I knew I had help.
I didn't know it all, so beingable to get that help.
And then my brother workedthere too.
He was a sergeant there.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, so we had different lastnames, so so he was always
helping me out too.
You know what I mean, becauseI'm new, trying to figure it out
.
I only worked as an officer forthree, three and a half years,

(38:00):
so he would help me out.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
He'd call me.
You know, Was the layout of CTFdifferent than the layout of
Valley State Prison?

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, so Valley State Prison, you have four yards and
then you have one big yard.
That's it, real simple, okay.
And then CTFf, solid dad.
Um, you have your centralfacility, which is just one big
building and there's wings inthere and, um, all the wing,
each wing, you know, you have Ithink it's two or three tiers, I
can't even remember old school,right, yeah?

(38:30):
And um, you have they had an adseg there and then then you go
all the way to the other side ofthe prison and you have a, a
north facility which was likeS&Y, two yards over there.
So you had your GP, big old GParea and then a big old S&Y area
over there.
And, yeah, it was cool, it wasdifferent, and that was my first
time working with big GPinmates, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Now, what about your role as sergeant, bro?
Because now you got peoplecoming up to you.
Hey, what's good morning Sargewithout weird hearing?
Sarge in and being in controlor in charge, I should say.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, I was privileged, I was honored to be
a supervisor.
I was like, man, this is cool,I got chevrons.
I was excited, I felt honoredto wear stripes.
At the same time, there's a lotof old school dudes that work
there.
So I knew my place.
I knew like, hey, just becauseyou got stripes, you ain't
better than nobody you got toput in your work.
And my brother told me rightaway he's like hey, alex, these
dudes know a lot of shit, so askthem for help Because they have

(39:27):
20 plus years in the department.
So you know, and I think thatme asking people for help, as
even though they're like, okay,this cool, this kid's real, like
he's not trying to act, likehe's somebody, he's not right
and I would tell them straightup hey bro, I don't want to do
count here, what the you know,can you help me?
and uh, you know, because whencount didn't clear on first
watch, the central controlcalled the sergeant.
But hey bro, go fix yourfucking area.

(39:47):
So I'd go with the snes andwe'd uh do counter.
But I always went with them.
You know, I wanted them to know.
Like I ain't gonna ask you todo anything.
I'm not gonna do facts, uh, butremind you, I'm a kid, you know
, I'm 23 years old, or 24 or 5years old at the time.
So it was challenging becausethe majority of people gave me
the cold shoulder.
And you know, you just untilthey feel you out and get to

(40:08):
know you, yeah, and then, uh, itwas nice having my brother
there because I did make acouple little mistakes and he
you know, hey, alex, whathappened, and he you know, hey,
alex, what happened yesterday.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
And he helped me with the little stuff, since we're
on the topic and it's a perfecttime, like what advice would you
give to a new, young supervisor?
A new young supervisor yeahembarking into that new role.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Man, there's a lot of supervisors I've promoted the
last couple of years.
Just understand that there's somuch stuff that you do as a
sergeant, you're not going toknow everything, so don't act
like you do.
And as a sergeant, you need tounderstand.
You have to know how to network, you have to know how to use
your resources, because you'regoing to have incidents, you're
going to have situations thatyou're not going to be

(40:57):
comfortable with or you're notgoing to know how to do, and
that's why it's very importantyou know how to network and not
be afraid to call and ask forhelp.
But when it comes to yourofficers, treat them with
respect.
And you know a good leader toldme this like hey, Alex, you can
have people try to believe inyou, but when you can get an
officer to believe in himself,that's when you became a real

(41:18):
leader hey guys, considerbecoming a patron, where you
will get first exclusive dibs onthe video before it airs to the
public and you'll get to askthe guest special questions that
you have in mind.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
So that's also another way to support the
channel.
Thank you, guys, appreciate allof you.
Keep pushing forward.
Make sure you hit that link indescription below.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
I didn't know what he meant at the time, but I would
watch him and he kind ofmentored me and he would talk to
the officers and show them howto grow.
And when you instill that inofficers, man, the facility's
tight, yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
So that's about it.
It's often been said uh, nobodycares how much you know until
they know how much you careabout them.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah and um, yeah, you got to really just slow it
down.
Another thing too as a newsergeant, you're not an officer.
That's the big one, dude, yeah,so don't act like it.
And when an alarm goes off andyou want to run, slow it down.
There's a lot of shit you got todo as a first line supervisor
right, take a deep breath,understand.
Like.
You got to make sure what'sbeing put on the radio.

(42:20):
You got to make sure all theassistance you need is getting
to your facility.
Do I got to call ISU?
Do I got to call centralcontrol?
Do I need an ERV?
Do I need additional staff?
Do I need to call for a codetwo and scan, scan the whole
fucking yard.
Let them know you're watching.
You know you're a supervisor.
You have to be in control withyour eyes, and a lot of people
don't do that.
But I've seen OGs do that wherethey walk into a building and

(42:44):
they'll scan the whole day roomand when they look at every
inmate it just kind of sets thetone.
I thought that was normal to do, bro.
Bro, no kids run into buildings.
Hey, get down.
And they're just looking atwhat tunnel vision?
Yeah, and I'm like bro, youknow, this guy's fighting right
here too, and uh, it's crazy.

(43:05):
But uh, I mean, I could say alot about it, but just to keep
it short, just just humbleyourself, understand?
You're not an officer and, um,you got a lot to learn.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
So be open to listening.
You are a very sharp andexperienced individual.
Okay, it's not just safety andsecurity they have to worry
about right.
It's also policy proceduredirections from their higher-ups
.
How would you advise them ifthey're directed to do something

(43:31):
that feels kind of off or evenactually violates policy?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
You know it's difficult to answer that because
, man, things have changed somuch, right, but if you're being
asked to do something from amanager perspective or from
headquarters that you don'tagree with, dude, you need to
know policy, you need toresearch everything to the T,
because nobody's perfect.
There's a lot of managers,there's a lot of people making
mistakes and you could catchthem as a first-line supervisor

(43:59):
by reviewing policy, byreviewing older grievances,
older staff complaints.
You got to dig a little bit.
But if you question something,you have a voice.
Just because you're afirst-line supervisor doesn't
mean you're nobody.
Your officers are looking up toyou to be that voice.
So put yourself out there.
It's going to be uncomfortable,but that's what you chose to do

(44:20):
.
So I mean question it if youdon't agree with it, because
your officers are going toquestion it and you need to give
an answer to them, whether theylike it or not.
Don't be that guy like well, Idon't know.
You know what I mean, becausethat would always piss me off.
So I always just try to learnas much as I can or know as much
as I can, and if I didn't agreewith it, I would just say hey,
lt, is it cool if we talk for aminute?

(44:40):
Yeah, can we talk to thecaptain just for five minutes?
And my approach was alwaysdifferent.
I'll say hey, cap, I don't wantto bother you, but, like, can
you explain this to me so I canexplain it to the guys?
Yeah, and that approach helpedme a lot.
And you know some of the stuffthat I didn't agree with.
He didn't understand.
Who didn't understand?
The captain was like what areyou talking about?
I'm like well, yeah, they toldus.

(45:00):
We got to.
You know, make these guys,these COVID guys, come over here
.
Right, what the fuck?
I'm like yeah, that's what themember says.
He's like hold on.
So then he calls you know,you're right, aw, fuck, don't do
shit.
Don't do shit, we're going tohave a meeting, we'll get back
to you.
So sometimes you can catchstuff, not all the time, but it
doesn't hurt to ask.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
No, you're right.
Oftentimes the left handdoesn't know what the right hand
is doing within the department.
Also, you can catch inmatesthat are housed where it's not
supposed to be housed right byrunning housing unit, count
rosters and fucking like,looking at dudes, fucking
classifications and be like waita minute, this motherfucker's
not supposed to be here.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Oh yeah happens all the time, dren, why is this guy
in the yard?
I was like, well, he lives here, bro, he was supposed to be
transferred three weeks ago.
I said, shit, should we go gethim?
Yeah, you know, and you know,people make mistakes, counselors
make mistakes, whatever.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Um, you know, but just deal with it as best you
can, so did you enjoy your timeas a sergeant I did.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, most of my career was a sergeant.
I was a sergeant for like sevenyears, oh yeah.
So and you know, I did a shortamount of time at soledad
awesome prison to work at goodgroup of Um, and then I had some
issues with um, um, my daughterand child custody stuff.
So I went to court for that andpretty much I didn't have a

(46:25):
judge during this child supportcase.
And you know they're like, hey,if you want to see your
daughter, you need to move backto the County and show that you
want to be around her.
And I'm like, okay, you know,that's my daughter, you know
it's my blood, I'm going to bethere for her.
And I'm like, okay, you knowthat's my daughter, you know
it's my blood, I'm going to bethere for her.
So and I was thinking like, howam I going to do this?
I just got put on this CRT teamthat I look up to these guys
about.
I just promoted as a sergeantwhere people are helping me out.

(46:47):
I get the, the, the time, theonly time I'm ever going to be
able to work with my brother,and I got to leave all this and
it was like I kind of hit thatpoint in my career where I was
actually happy to go to work, Iwas proud of what I was.
Oh, that's a good fuckingfeeling, bro.
Yeah, and I went to interviewat North Kern and Corcoran, and
I interviewed at Corcoran oncebefore and they didn't pick me

(47:10):
up.
Did you interview for?

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Corcoran as a lieutenant once before, or for
sergeant, just sergeant justsergeant.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Okay, yeah, I got picked up.
My first interview as asergeant, my first interview as
a lieutenant.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
But um damn homie dispensa.
I got lucky.
Took me like four or fivefucking times.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Well, I'll tell you bro, I'll tell you a story real
quick.
So when I went to interview atcorcoran the second time, I did
not give a shit.
I was disgruntled, I was upsetthat I had to leave.
So when I went in there, youknow how the panel goes right,
yeah, and they're asking youthese questions and I knew most
of the stuff as a sergeant.
You know the hearing process,the basic questions what do you

(47:45):
do if there's a fight on theyard?
How do you lock up an inmate?
What are the duties of asergeant, Whatever?
But the last question mostpeople will ever ask you for all
your interviews is you know, doyou have any questions for us,
or why should we pick you up?
And that's where you sellyourself, you know.
And I was fucking disgruntled,dude, and you know, a little

(48:07):
cocky at the time.
I was like why should you pickme?
Let me tell you why you shouldpick me.
Because I got my two-piece inthe car and I'm to work and I'll
work any motherfucking yard atthis prison.
I didn't cuss, I'm just joking,but I said I'll work any yard
at this prison.
A lot of people don't want towork.
I'm here to work, so you needme to work tomorrow.
You need me to work right now,you let me know.
But if you don't need me, youguys have a good day.

(48:28):
Fuck out of here.
Yeah.
And the one guy was like hey.
And so I'm thinking fuck youguys.
I left, you know, drove back tomy house the next day.
They're like hey, is this, areyou Durant?
I was like, yeah, what's up.
They're like oh, sorry, man,we're going to offer you a
position.
It worked, it worked.
I was like are you sure I wasthe last thing?

(48:53):
I expected, dude?
Yeah.
So I was like wait, are yousure?
They're like, yeah, full time.
I was like Fuck bro, Wait, areyou?

Speaker 1 (49:00):
As a sergeant or as a lieutenant?
I transferred as a sergeant.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, so you interviewed firstas a sergeant.
You transferred as a sergeantto Corcoran.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yeah, because of my child support issues.
Yeah, came to Corcoran with oneyear as a supervisor so that
way I could establish custody ofmy daughter, right.
And so I went back to court andthey were like, okay, cool, so
holy shit bro.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
So technically this is your fourth correctional
facility you've worked at toinclude the county.
How was that?

Speaker 2 (49:32):
So Corcoran's a whole different animal.
That's a maximum securityprison for all the people that
work in other states.
You guys call it super max.
We only have max, we don't goany higher.
So yeah, corcoran was rockingand rolling.
It was scary.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Right out the gate, like initially.
I mean, did you hit the groundrunning?
Were you seeing any shit youhad not been exposed to thus far
in all your experiences, ohyeah, been exposed to thus far
in all your experiences?

Speaker 2 (49:59):
oh yeah, corcoran broke me in.
You know they.
They beat the shit out of methere.
Um, when I started there,remind you, I talked a big game
and I regretted it the first dayI walked in.
I talked all that shit in thatinterview and they're like, yeah
, this kid's about it.
Put him in um or level four,eop ad sig level four eop ad sig
.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
How many ad sigs did corcoran have?

Speaker 2 (50:16):
fuck dude I mean, I mean at the time you have 4A
which has your shoe, which hadLTRH long restricted housing.
Okay, they had everybody there.
They had like four lockup unitsjust on 4A.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
And then the one you're talking about was level 4
SMY, eop, like the worst of theworst.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, so, corcoran, you know you have a four side
and three side, three side um.
On three a facility you haveyour level four EOP and then in
the middle of the prison youhave a um, an administrative
segregation for just triple Cinmates In the middle of the
prison, yeah, next to our uh um,like our R and R um, what do

(50:56):
you call it?
Correctional Treatment Center,our little hospital?
Yeah, there's like a littleisolated, that's interesting
Administrative segregation inthe middle.
And then on 4 side, on 4A, youhave all your lockup units and
then before they had 4B, whichis lockup, but when I got there
they were transitioning 4B to alevel two facility.
Is there any mainline there?
Gp it was.

(51:17):
Yeah, well, not anymore, but 3Cwas level four GP, 3c was level
four GP and 3B was level four.
180 or 270?
Smy, 270, I think ABC.
Abc was open or ABC was closed.
No, I mean the building youwalk in you have a unit or a
section B, section, c section,so that's 180.

(51:39):
With walls?
Yeah, with walls in between, nowalls, okay 270.
Oh 270, yeah, never understoodthat.
But yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you have lock-up units allover the fucking place.
You know, like I went to VSP,they have one lock-up unit.
You know, 50 fucking inmatesand then I go to Corcoran.
It was this whole otherballgame.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
So what are some things?
You see, that's where theyassigned you or that's where you
ended up in that.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
When I went to Corcoran I was a second watch
coverage, so they're like hey,put this motherfucker Plugging
you in there, yeah, put himeverywhere.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Let's see what he's about Describe to the crowd what
kind of fucking sound sightsmells.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
You'll hear in a lock-up unit like that yelling
man.
You know so.
Corcoran was is old school, youknow so.
My first um day they put me init was 304 at the time.
So it's 304, level 4 eop.
So you walk into that building,you know.
The control door opens up.
You walk in and all thesemotherfuckers see your nice
shiny little chevrons fuck youevery inmate is like this

(52:41):
fucking head on the glass andthey're like, look at that
pretty ass, little fucking mariolopez bitch.
And I was just like, oh my gosh, here we go.
And they're like, damn homie,look at your little ass.
Like they just.
It's probably the first time Ifelt like I was like man.
This is what it feels like tobe catcalled when you're a woman
.
Facts it's horrible.

(53:02):
So after that I never catcalledany woman in my life.
But it's very loud, it's cold.
So you know that's one thing.
People never tell you Prison'scold.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
There's cement everywhere, and when you're cold
you kind of stiffen up, whichis not a good thing.
Wait a minute, is it?

Speaker 2 (53:23):
cork rim where jaime osuna cut off that dude's head.
Yeah, right there on 4a, wasthat your time frame?
Yeah, no, yeah, I wasn'tworking that day, but uh, uh,
randolph, he's an aw now.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
He was the lieutenant there so this is a unit that
you're talking about, or adifferent unit or similar?

Speaker 2 (53:33):
no, so 4a was our strh or yeah well, asuna, he was
eop, you know at the time, yeah, as a mental health status.
So he went to 304, okay, so 304and 481 were your two worst
areas at corcoran.
Oh my god, yeah, you know.
So you know.
4a was violent, you know what Imean.
Yeah, but like, but you had,you had your gangsters there,

(53:54):
you know what I mean.
Like you had some shot callersthere, like your general
population guys in your humbleopinion, bro.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Would you rather deal with gp gangsters or fucking
eops?

Speaker 2 (54:03):
gp all day long.
Exactly, I'd rather fight afucking gangster.
They'll fight you fair, they'llbeat you up and all right.
Cool, you know what I meanbecause I've been beat up a lot.
Um, but they're straight upabout it, right?
An eop guy?
They'll fucking cut your throatand they don't even care.
Weird shit, huh, yeah, all Iknow is EOP.
My first building at ValleyState Prison was the first
building they ever converted onA2.

(54:25):
Yeah, it was a brand new EOPbuilding.
Nobody wanted to work it.
So I'm like, hey, there'sSunday, mondays off on a bid,
bro, nobody wants it.
They're like, hey, you don'twant to go there, youngster.
So my first building I worked alevel two EOP.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
So what advice would you give again, with your
experience of a CO maybe he'sworked around GPs his whole
entire career, transferred to ajoint where there's EOPs and the
fucking wild ones we're talkingabout what advice would you
kind of school him like?
Would you say like hey, becareful around these guys.
They're more impulsive,definitely?

Speaker 2 (55:01):
So and we would get this all the time because 3C was
level 4 GP, so we'd getofficers from 3C to get held
over to my yard, which was 3A.
3a is a level 4 S&Y and we hadEOP at SIG, so we would get EOPs
like overflow.
The mentality is different.
You cannot talk down or cuss ortry to be rough with a mentally

(55:26):
challenged inmate, so they'revery unpredictable and the
majority of them are takingpsych medications.
If you look at all the incidentsand stuff going on in the world
, a lot of it's due to peoplethat are taking psych medication
and they're not mentally stablebecause they're switching
medication or they go off orwhatever that's happening in

(55:47):
those areas.
So you got to be patient, yougot to know how to talk to them
and you got to be careful withhow you talk.
And I use a lot of my bodylanguage to talk to people Like
I don't directly talk in frontof you, it just it comes out
violent.
So I always approach somebodyon the side, I always let them
talk and explain everything andthen I'll say what I have to say

(56:07):
.
But if you try to approach oneof them and tell them something
dude, it's like startling afucking deer bro.
It's like grabbing a pit bull.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
That's why we call them EOPwhispers yeah, the cops that are
really good at talking to thesedudes.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Yeah, most of those cops are pretty much EOP
themselves, correct, they gotissues, facts, so you bring that
with that and sometimes itworks out.
No, but it does work out.
My first big extraction I didwas because a stupid officer
that worked on a generalpopulation tried to down talk an
inmate in an EOP ad seg and itwas something really stupid.
And I have a good rapport withthis inmate, very violent inmate

(56:46):
but this stupid officer saidsomething disrespectful to him.
You don't do that.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Was that the inmate's name that you stated earlier?
Yeah, we're talking offline.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Yeah, Okay, and he said something disrespectful to
the inmate's name that youstated earlier.
Yeah, we're talking offline.
Yeah, okay, and he saidsomething disrespectful to the
inmate and it just is somethingthat simple calling somebody a
bitch, somebody walking by youand you not addressing them.
That'll get you a wholeincident and that's what
happened that day.
But you got to be careful withthose guys, with the EOP guys.
Back to your question.

(57:15):
Well, not to be careful withthose guys, you know, with the
EOP guys.
Back to your question.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Well, not to mention.
I mean oftentimes we think EOP,we think of the fakers.
Right, we've all dealt with thefakers, yeah yeah.
But then there's the ones thatare literally whatever they're
dealing with schizophrenia,psychosis, psychotic episodes,
that's fuck.
Had you ever encountered thatkind of motherfuckers off the?

Speaker 2 (57:37):
rocker.
Oh, man dude.
Yeah, you know, like you said,you got to remember in the
prison system a lot of yourgeneral population inmates.
When they get washed up andthey go S and Y, there's more
privileges and program for EOPinmates so weird.
So if you're a smart inmate,you're going to go tell a
psychologist, oh, I don't feeltoo good, and then they'll
evaluate you and you're going tofake a test and then you're

(57:58):
going to be in an EOP program.
Now you have more opportunity,you have more visiting, you have
a bunch of shit.
So a lot of inmates are goingEOP for that purpose only.
And then they avoid all theissues from these two fivers
Northern Riders on the S&Y game,because they're segregating
themselves.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
So they're segregating themselves, so
they're smart, but CDCR justpulled a fast one on them around
2019 and made themnon-designated, bro, meaning
they can go wherever the fucknow.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, I can tell you about that too, did you?

Speaker 1 (58:24):
encounter that?
Yeah, yeah, I did.
And did you have inmatesrefusing to get rehoused?

Speaker 2 (58:32):
So I ran 3A for two years as a sergeant, a level 4
S&Y, but we had our EOP buildingthere, so I got real familiar
with the EOPs, dealing with them.
Going back to I think youmentioned something earlier so
there was an inmate I had a goodrapport with.
He was EOP very slow.
You know the mentality of afive-year-old, so you have to

(58:54):
talk to him very slow, explainstuff to him.
One day he snapped, sucked herofficer right in her face.
Female officer Cracked her Boomboom, cracked her right in her
face, boom, she fell over.
Male officer sees it, goes overthere, boom boom, starts
throwing blows and they're goingat it.
They're fucking going at it.
And he was one of my goodofficers.
Officer, this is one thing yougot to understand as supervisor.
When an alarm goes off and youdon't hear anybody on that radio

(59:18):
, that's a scary thing, dude.
It gets me my blood goingBecause I don't know if an
officer is fighting, I don'tknow if an officer is getting
hurt.
And then you know most of theones were false alarms and stuff
.
But that's why, as a supervisor, this is something I always did
when an alarm went off, I wouldtell the control booth control,

(59:40):
what do we got Control?
What do we got?
Because everybody needs to knowwhat the hell we're running
into.
But those scared me, and thatwas that one where nobody was on
the radio.
So me and my guys got there andyou were the sergeant on the
facility.
Yeah, yeah, we had an EOPbuilding there too.
I forgot to say there was aneop I'd say an eop building.
So we get there, we deal withthe ma.
Uh, we take them up to programand I won't say too much.

(01:00:04):
But, um, yeah, don't say toomuch.
I saw, I saw his personalitychange and it was scary, dude.
He went from looking me in theeye saying some horrible things,
like I'm gonna kill you, like Ikilled that fucking girl, yeah,
crazy.
And then, oh, hey, duran,everything okay.
And I was like motherfucker,hold up, hold up, yeah, dude,

(01:00:27):
and that was him.
He was bipolar, he wasschizophrenic and that's the
kind of shit you got tounderstand when you deal with
those inmates.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
I need you to please for the record loud and clear,
because I've been doing thisYouTube shit for two years and
every time I mention a staffassault, you have everyone and
their mom saying, oh, inmates,don't assault COs for no reason.
You just gave a perfect fuckingexample of Mavagas switches
flipping.
Do inmates attack COs for no?

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
reason All the time.
All the time.
If you look at it like thisHector, all of your violent,
disgusting, like rape type ofstuff that inmates have done to
officers, they've all been atyour low level areas where
people don't have their guard up.
Like your crazy, violent, youknow rape, murder, stuff

(01:01:17):
statewide.
In the last 30, 40 years theyweren't at a level four maximum
prison.
They're at a level two area ina dining area, somewhere where
nobody has their guard up.
So, yeah, that kind of shithappens and that's why you know
you're going to go a long timeand it's easy, there's nothing
going on, but it's complacency.
It's complacency.
You're in an area where there'sa lot of people that were taken

(01:01:38):
out of society and put here fora reason and that's why you
have to have your guard up.
You have to you know what Imean Be able to use your
peripheral to observe stuff andbe sharp.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Not just that, you have death row condemned inmates
on level two facilities nowno-transcript.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
They changed protective custody to naming it
SNY sensitive need yards.
So all your guys that werewashed up or taken off of a
mainline went to SMY.
Well, the state said fuck, allthese SMY inmates are
politicking and making gangsjust like they were on the GP.
So what we try to do is notworking.
We have more violence on SMYyards, we have more gangs that

(01:02:29):
we don't even know about,because all your, your sedanials
, your northenials, your whites,your blacks, they're like hey,
bro, I'm a gangster, justbecause my homies don't think
I'm good.
I am good.
So some of these dudes aresmart.
So they start politicking, theymake their own game, they get
numbers, and with numbers you'restrong.
And so the state said what thefuck are we going to do?
You know?

(01:02:52):
And so they said hey, let's makethem, whatever they you know
those politicians decided to do.
But, um, so they just saidlet's just throw everybody
together because whatever wedid's not working.
And you could ask a lot of eventhe counselors are like what
the fuck do we do?
Right, when I was the watchcommander, we had counselors
from uh san quentin that weretransferring inmates not putting

(01:03:14):
proper uh documentation becausethey were scared to put their
name on the paperwork.
Yeah, I'm like hey, why aren't?
Is this guy coming to this yardor not?
You said he could come here,but your classification stuff
you're not actually wording that.
So is he locked up or not.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Oh, I see what you're saying.
I think I encountered that.
What do they call those notes?
Case notes or whatever?
They would leave shit veryvague.
Or it'll say receivinginstitution will designate the
appropriate housing.
Yeah, and put it on you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Yeah, I'm like, hold on.
You just sent him to us, sowhere is he supposed to go?
Oh well, you know, wherever youthink?
Whoa, it don't work that way,but that was their way to cover
their ass, right, and you know,everyone has to cover their own
ass, but yeah.
So we opened up our firstnon-designated yard on 3B and 4B
and at the time I was a thirdwatch sergeant.

(01:04:03):
Two years on, 3a Finallyapproved myself, established
myself with the guys, thingswere good, Yard was good, and
then I got offered to go tosecond watch by Goss solid dude
and so I went to second watch asa relief.
They said, hey, duran,so-and-so's running the yard, we
need another sergeant to.
They needed some muscle on theyard, pretty much.

(01:04:24):
So they brought me over to 3Band they said, hey, we're
bringing this, all these dudesfrom these private jails and
stuff, and they're going to cometo non-designated.
And I'm like, okay, they'relike we need you to.
When they come here, we'rebringing them in 30, 40, 50
dudes at a time.
Was the yard empty starting off.
No, we already had a bunch oflike S&Y inmates there.

(01:04:47):
S&y inmates.
So they were S&Y heavyinitially, yeah, and they just
started sitting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Well, they just changed their status Now what
would happen every time theywould bring a GP onto that
facility.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
So when they switched it to non-designated 3B.
It started off slow, nothingreally going on.
We were having more issues withthe Southerners.
They're just you're not takingme there.
And the counselors are like,well, we're going to recommend
you for non-designated andthey're like I ain't going there
, you're fucking out of yourmind.
So then what happens there?
You know we get stuck having totake them physically, take them

(01:05:21):
.
And you know I always kept shit100.
You know, I would tell aSoutherner I say, man, you
understand, I got to put you on3B.
He's like, yeah, dred, nodisrespect, but I got to do what
I here to the holding cell andif you want to take off on us,
take off on us.
So it was always respected, youknow.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Explain that more.
Take them to the holding cell.
So what would you tell them?

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
So, like if I had to take an inmate from like R&R to
the facility, I didn't want anyissues to arise in front of
medical, in front of free staff.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
So you would tell the in&M Dave, you're going to do
your thing, do it at the yard,and you know it was respect,
right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
He's like hey, dren, I got to do what I got to do,
right.
And I said, well, that's cool,but I don't want any females to
get hurt, I don't want any freestaff to get hurt because we
start fighting.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
So a lot of people have this question.
They're in their mind dude.
You know, honestly, it was justone of those things to where
you do what you're told.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Right, and it wasn't just like they're telling us,
they're telling the whole state.
So anybody that was convertingto non-designated yards.
They were slowly doing thiswith lower-level inmates that
didn't really have a voice sothey wouldn't do anything.
So they started with your levelones, your level twos, guys
that didn't have a lot of timein the prison system,
intermingling them.
You know, you got.
You got child molesters, youhave northerners, bulldogs,

(01:06:46):
whatever, and they're puttingthem all in the same yard.
And you bring a 20 year old kidoff the streets, that's a
bulldog.
What is he going to do?
I mean, he don't really knowany better.
And you bring a dude from likeSalinas Valley, that's a bulldog
.
He's going to fight everybody.
You know that's just the way itis.
And so, yeah, 4b, when 4B madenon-designated bro, it was crazy
.
Honestly, it's going prettygood from what I heard.

(01:07:09):
You know it's mellowed out.
No, you're saying that now, butwhat about initially?
Oh, no, it was off the hookdude.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
But did a lot of inmates get hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Yeah, all the time it was crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
From your perspective , do you think they have valid
lawsuits coming from that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
No, I mean they dot their I's cross their T's with
paperwork, so it's like puttingyour signature on something.
If you sign it, you own it.
So they would make a lot ofinmates sign shit, in my opinion
, or agree to shit.
I thought they were fucking justadmonishing them.
You know, yeah, when they wouldgo to committee and talk to

(01:07:51):
these inmates, they would prettymuch say, on there we're making
the recommendation that you'regoing to non-designated.
And then you know, I would scanall the way down to like the
comments or whatever.
And the A&M said, fuck you, I'mnot going there, but it is our
recommendation that he go there,try it out, type of thing.
Right, and yeah, so real quick,hector, we'd get R&R.

(01:08:15):
And I would call the R and rsergeant hey, bro, what's going
on today?
And he'd be like hey, dredd,you have five bulldogs coming to
your to three.
I didn't, I didn't work for me,but I would get held there a
lot, yeah, and he'd be like yougot five bulldogs.
So I already knew what thatmeant.
Those motherfuckers are gonna,they're gonna take off.
So they would ask we wouldescort them to the facility.
And it was just, you know, itwas game time.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
Was the Bulldogs getting off any different than
the Surrenos getting off, or didthey all look the same?

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
So we try to do it controlled.
So if we could release one at atime and take them to their
cell, we would.
But it's just like the secondwe open that door and there's
inmates around.
They're just going to take off.
The Bulldogs are verystructured.
I mean, the Northerners arevery structured.
So the Northerners would neverleave R&R by themselves.
So they would say, hey, ifyou're taking us, you're going

(01:09:01):
to at least take two of us.
So they were always getting offtwo or more.
Yeah, they'd say, you couldeither extract us here or let us
go out two at a time.
That's interesting.
So what they would do is wewould take two to three
northerners and we'd put them ina unit and what the northerners
would do is they would lockarms and then they would just go

(01:09:21):
at it and start fucking goingto town on dudes.
But they would lock arms sothey knew they were together as
long as they could.
And the chomos were gettingtheir ass beat right.
All these washed-up dudes weregetting their ass beat.
So the chomos got sick of itand they said we got to do
something.
We got it, we got to protectourselves.
It was fucking weird.
And so all these fucking youknow guys that are in there for

(01:09:42):
disgusting crimes.
They started having meetingsand they started forming like a
little alliance.
No way bro what the bro.
So all these guys said, hey,when these guys come into the
building, we're all gonna sticktogether, we're gonna fight
together.
So I'm watching avs and I youknow, I see fucking 20 chomos
taking off on four northerners.
I'm like this is some weirdshit would the northerners come

(01:10:04):
out on top?

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
no, no, the fucking chomolestri would.
Fucking son of a bitch man.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
That's a horrible ending to the story.
Yeah, I mean not all the time,but yeah, you know, I probably
saw like maybe eight fights likethat.
I didn't even work that yard.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
So the way they were we, they were doing it in
Donovan was you would get fourSoutherners touch down the
minimum yard and then, one at atime, they would.
We would tell them just to walkinto the dorm by themselves,
yeah, and then we'd walk inbehind them and they'd be on the
ground laid out.
No suspects, yeah, no, Ibelieve it.
And then you roll them up forsafety concerns.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Yeah, that's exactly what we did.
And they would get mad at me.
The Southerners?
Well, yeah, bro, they do.
Ain't nobody trying to getfucked up?
No, no, no, I mean like I, Iwould say, hey, I gotta roll you
up.
And they would get mad like, no, put me on the fucking yard.
You already brought me here,motherfucker.
Put me out there.
And I'm like no, I can't.
You already.

(01:11:06):
You already tried to stab thosetwo guys.
You're right, you brought mehere, let me get down.
I'm like you already got down,but they would.
They wanted to prove themselvesfacts, yeah because what a shit
storm.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
It was it shitstorm, bro, it was bad.
That's horrible, man.
Yeah, with no direction fromthe top, dude, it's just like
hey, fucking mix them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
No, well, most of the times that all the inmates
would arrive, the managers weregone anyways, true, so they'd be
like, hey, let's see what'sgoing to happen in the morning,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Now did you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
And, yeah, I had a Southerner take off on me on 3B
non-designated.
We were escorting him and hewas like, hey, bro, I ain't
going to fucking be here.
And I'm just like, hey, man,this is where you're going.
And nowadays they just, oh, I'min crisis, I'm going to kill
myself.
So you got to whatever, do theCIT stuff.
And so we did all that.
Right, mental health came andevaluated him, lieutenant,
sergeant, and then mental healthcleared him.

(01:12:02):
They're like, no, he ain't incrisis.
Yeah, so when they clear him,what do we got to do?

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
We got to take him back to the building you know,
did you ever experience a crisisintervention team, a CIT, where
they have a person from mentalhealth, a person from medical
and then a custody?
Yeah, 100 times, probably more.
Could you explain to the crowdthat's a duty that a sergeant or
a lieutenant has to do, man,let's say you have an inmate and

(01:12:27):
he alleges he's suicidal.
What the process would be then?

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
So the first thing as a sergeant, if you have an
inmate that's crisis bed, go onPsalms and look him up and look
at his behavior pattern, see ifhe's ever tried to commit
suicide and then kind of look uphis notes to see how many times
he's been crisis-bid.
So you have an idea of whatyou're dealing with.
And then when you do a mentalhealth crisis-bid, you have a
licensed psychologist, you havean RN, and then you you're the

(01:12:54):
only person there from thecustody side and the three of
you go into the area.
The psychologist will ask somequestions and she does her
mental health assessment andthen the RN evaluates him for
any type of injuries and thenyou, as custody, your role is to
make sure he doesn't have anyenemy or safety concerns on the
yard, because most of theseinmates will say I'm suicidal.

(01:13:15):
So that way they can go to aholding cell and they can say
hey, bro, I'm no good on theyard, like you got to get me out
of here.
I owe homeboy uh fucking 86soups and he's gonna fuck me up.
Yeah, so I gotta go.
And me I was always the kind ofsupervisor at the time like if
you created yourself in depth.
You clean up your own mess, Iain't gonna help you out.

(01:13:36):
Worse shit, oh 100 that's allyou.
But you know, if you had seriousissues, yeah, I'd help you out,
but that's how.
That's how the um, mentalcrisis bid or CIT shit goes.
They evaluate them.
Most of the time you're waitingon a psychologist to get there.
Depending on who thepsychologist is, they'll either
send them or they won't, buteither way, after they leave,

(01:13:56):
it's your responsibility to getthat inmate back to the building
or to wherever he's going to go.
And that's kind of where itbecomes our issue and we get,
you know, battered, assaulted.
That's how I got battered on 3Bone time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
Could you explain what a medical emergency cell
entry is and when one would needto transpire?

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Yeah, so people get it confused.
You know, you have yourcontrolled use of force, which
is your big extraction where youhave to set everything up.
You have your medical cellentries and your emergency cell
entries.
Um, so for what did you say Amedical, yeah, emergency cell
entry.
So for an emergency cell entry,I mean it's going to be, it has
to be an emergency.

(01:14:38):
So, uh, your officer observesthe inmate down, uh, doesn't
appear to be breathing orwhatever.
Or if an inmate boards up andyou can't see anything in his
cell, those ones are the fuckedup ones.
It's your responsibility tomake sure the inmate is live and
breathing.
So we would do an emergencycell entry.
And you got to be careful withthose, because most inmates will
set you up just so you go inthere.

(01:15:00):
But with an emergency cell entry, if it's an ad sec setting, at
least make sure your officershave the bare minimum a shield
and a helmet.
And most of those officers atCorcoran are good enough to
where.
If there's a situation, they'lldeal with it themselves before
I get there.
But if it's like somebody weknow that's going to be an issue
, they'll call me hey, duran,so-and-so, he fucking boarded up

(01:15:22):
, we're going to go in.
So I start heading over thereso we can assess.
But with that, make sure yourofficers have a shield, a helmet
.
Rack the door.
They go in there, uh, hold themdown, cuff them up leg
restraints, pull them out andthen have medical evaluate them.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
But it doesn't always look that nice sometimes, you
know no, because you're right,they'll play possum and they'll
fight sometimes when the dooropens.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Yeah, oh, so real quick with medical cell entries.
You know emergency cell entries, like I said, those can get
real sketchy real quick.
So I would always.
You know, I'm not going to sayfuck with inmates, but I try to
work them as best I could.
So, for instance, we had thisdude that board up all the time.
So the hey Durant, so-and-so'sboarded up.

(01:16:10):
I'm like all right, cool, just,I'll go over there in one
minute.
So I'd go up to the cell and Iwould go to the adjacent cell
and I'd be like hey man, hey, isthis your fucking mouse that's
right here trying to come out.
And then the dude would pop thething to look.
Well, I just observed he's liveand breathing, right, so we
don't got to go in.
And he'd be like mother, youtricked me.
I'm like I didn't, I didn'ttell you to look.
But you know we would do shitlike that because most of the

(01:16:30):
time these guys are fuckingaround, they're not being
serious.
Um, you know, and if you guys,if you have an inmate boarding
up as a supervisor, do yourhomework, pull them up on psalms
and see how many extractionshe's been in, see how many
officers he's battered, becausea lot of these dudes have
battered 30, 40, 50 officers.
Do you really think if he'sboarded up he's going to be

(01:16:52):
hurting himself?
No, he's not.
So try to build a rapport withthat guy.
You know what I mean To keepyour officers safe, but yeah,
those ones.
They happen all the time.
They happen all the time.
They happen every day atCorcoran.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Throughout this interview thus far you've
mentioned a lot of ways toresearch, just like to gain
knowledge, Like right now youjust stated like hey, look up
their SOM, See how much batteryon peace officers they have.
What are some other tips ortricks that you would look up?
What are some advantages orstuff that COs are able to look
up inmates in their own housingunit to get knowledge on the

(01:17:25):
inmate?

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Yeah, just that right there.
Like if you're an officer andyou're having issues with
inmates or you want to know whatinmates are about, I usually
just start with theirdisciplinary.
I want to see what he's capableof.
I want to see what he's done.
If you suspect a guy of doingdope or passing dope, look him
up.
If he has a bunch ofparaphernalia and drug stuff,
well, yeah, you probably justobserved him passing dope.

(01:17:47):
But same thing with extractions.
Before we do a controlled use offorce, I would pull up an
inmate's disciplinary and Iwould read his controlled use of
forces to see whether he likesto gas staff, whether he likes
to bite staff, if he likes tokick, whether he likes to use a
weapon.
Because the majority of inmatesare going to do the same
fucking thing over and overagain.
They kick you the same, theyhit you the same.

(01:18:08):
In an immediate situation youjust react to what you know.
So, the bare minimum, justreview disciplinary.
But on another note, like withinmates that are like suicidal
or you know, you got lifers.
You know, at all these placesSome of these dudes get tired,
right, and when they get tiredthey're done and they don't want
to be there.

(01:18:29):
So I would always try to lookup, you know where they're from
or who's visited them, just tokind of get a touch for them as
a person, right, because I'vehad guys say, hey, dredd, I
can't do this anymore, man, I'mfucking done.
I I've had guys say, dredd, Ican't do this anymore, man, I'm
fucking done, I'm going to, I'mdone, dude.
And I knew what they meant.
Dude tried to kill himselftwice already and he's like

(01:18:49):
Dredd, just let me be.
And so I'd look up his family,see what he's about, and you
know and I'm not saying this isthe right thing to do, but this
is just something that I didthough you're here, like you
could still be riding him, youcould still be trying to
communicate with him.
You know he'd rather have youhere than not here.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
And we're both we're both former lieutenants, bro.
It would not be in the wrong toallow the dude to make a phone
call home or to a family member.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
I'm telling you you said it, dude.
I've done that twice.
Where a dude hit a rock bottom,he's down 16 years.
His lady finalized the divorcepaperwork.
Dude has no hope.
And just because you're fuckingwearing green doesn't mean you
can't be real.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Yeah, it's like hey, dude, pull him out of the phone.
Right there, man, Make a call.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
And I'd be like hey, man, it's cool, you want to talk
to your mom Really?
Yeah, man, I'll give you a callright now.
Whole mentality changes.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Now what I just said was hey, you're not in the wrong
to.
If an inmate is feeling downand out at the end of his
freaking ropes man to give thedude a phone call, let him call
somebody that fucking actuallycares or loves about him, right,
yeah.
But I want you to balance thescale, and where it starts to
become unrealistic when you haveinmates wilding out out of
control and now you're rewardingbad behavior.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Man, I was thinking that before.
You said it too, so you got tounderstand it.
If you're a newer officer or anofficer, you don't reward bad
behavior.
I'm not going to go give aninmate a fucking phone call just
because he's asked me 22 times.
I'm not going to go give aninmate a fucking phone call just
because he's asked me 22 times.
You don't bend the rules forpeople just because they're
trying to fucking game you.
If somebody has somethingcoming and you know you want to

(01:20:33):
do something right and you're inthe position to do something
right, honor it.
But you don't bend the rules.
You don't just start giving upthe house for no fucking reason
and it creates a lot of issuesthat you don't see yet.
And even for OGs that runhousing units and they just let
the whole fucking house go, it'slike that unit is a

(01:20:54):
representation of yourself.
So everybody that walks inthere knows you're fucking weak,
you're lazy, you don't care.
And every new officer that'swhat you're showing them.
So if you're a new officer andyou're like man I don't know any
better So-and-so allows them tojump on the phones all the time
or to smoke on the benches.
I guess I have to allow thattoo, and that's why we get a lot
of shitty cops is because youknow monkeys, see, monkeys do.

(01:21:14):
So it's like for you officersthat are 5, 10 years.
In my opinion, you guys are themost knowledgeable and the most
valuable because you can be thatofficer that you wish you had
when you were new.
You could show them all thethings that you wish you would
have shown, been shown.
You could do all that.
You know everything.
You know enough now to whereyou know what's right from wrong

(01:21:37):
and you know how to talk toinmates.
So, like on the flip side, ifyou were just to give knowledge,
share knowledge, to these kids,these newer officers, I think
it would just change the wholementality.
Man, well, how huge ismentoring?
It's huge.
You know what I mean, that's,you know they created that whole
Sergeant Mentoring Program andit started off good and it went
to shit.

(01:21:57):
But you know we all need amentor.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
you know you mentioned the Sergeant sergeant
mentoring program, but I'mtalking about partners on the
yard, shoulder to shoulder, backagainst the wall how critical
and vital is it for to runscenarios to with each other,
communicate hey, so and so,fucking so, and so he owes money
, so and so he got bad news,right?
How important is it to fuckingtalk amongst partners?
That's a big deal, and I'veheard officers say this oh, I
don't talk to inmates.

(01:22:22):
I don't talk to inmates.
That means you, right?
How important is it?

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
to fucking talk amongst partners.
That's a big deal.
And I've heard officers saythis oh, I don't talk to inmates
, I don't talk to inmates.
That means you don't know yourfucking inmates and you don't
know your yard.
Like we don't run shit.
Those inmates run everything.
We're just there and there's amutual respect.
For instance, when I was a yardsergeant, every inmate that
came out had to see me.
So they'd come out and I woulddirect them and all the officers

(01:22:45):
would pat them down, but theyhad to see me first.
They had to walk out of thewhat do you call this little
controlled area out of thebuilding, the rotunda?
Yeah, they'd walk out of therotunda, were you guys releasing
one building at a time?
Yeah, so they'd walk out of therotunda.
I was standing right there,okay, and then I would direct
them to go to the left and youhave like five to ten officers
lined up against the wall Right.

(01:23:05):
So why I'm saying this isevery—.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
Would they come out in their boxers and without a
shirt?
Yeah, for a while yeah, becauseI had a warden yell at the cops
for making the inmates do that.
He said the cops werehumiliating him.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
He's probably never—he didn't come up as a cop
Well he did.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
Oh, oh shit.
Yeah, you know, um, this wasright after, right after they
brutally stabbed two fuckingcops and almost killed him, bro.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
A week later, dude, when I went to 3b and I was a
yard sergeant for one day, I wasso scared out of my mind.
They're like, hey, duran,you're the yard sergeant.
I said, yeah, I'm just here forthe day.
Like you know what happened tothe last yard sergeant?
Right, I was like no man.
They're like well, he's out.
He got socked in the face,knocked him out cold.
I was like when Yesterday I waslike, do I got to be right

(01:23:52):
there for yard?
They're like, yeah, and it wasreal active.
It was level four SMY.
The two fivers were running thefucking yard, but they wanted
to assault staff.
You know what I mean wanted toassault staff.
You know what they did?
Oh, yeah, I think they had alittle green light on staff.
What was their motive?
Fuck, I don't know.
I was so new to that facility,I just knew a lot of people were
getting battered and assaulted,but that was what they told me.
They say that that lastsergeant he got fucking, did you

(01:24:13):
guys?

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
have avss and body one camera.
No, not at the time, nothingokay um, back to your question.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
Um, I made it a point to address every inmate.
Hey, good, good morning, goodmorning, how you doing, good
morning.
I got a feel for everybody'stone and most of your inmates
you know.
Hey, what's up, dredd, what'sup what's up.
And then the guys that don'ttalk, you know, but you get a
feel for them.
And if a guy came out wearingglasses I never wore glasses
Well, I know he probably got twofucking shiners, or a guy that

(01:24:42):
puts his head down and usuallytalks to me, I know he's
probably having a bad day and itkind of lets me know oh, maybe
something's wrong with this dudeor maybe I got to watch out for
this dude.
But yeah, you got to make it apoint to talk to these inmates.
Like, communication is whereeverything starts.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
With that being said, man, a lot of these newer
breeds and I need to make thisfucking clear, man, I'm not
putting a blanket statement orlabeling a whole generation yeah
, but it almost seemed like as anewer generation came to work,
they considered it more of a jobthan a career, meaning they
weren't putting in the effort todo their research and learn the

(01:25:17):
yard and learn their inmates.
Yeah, um, could you explain howimportant it is to treat it
like a career?
Maybe because your life fuckingdepends on it?

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
Yeah, you got to understand like the person you
don't like, the person you don'ttalk to, could possibly be
having to save your life one day.
Like you could be in a scufflewith an inmate, you could have
to do an extraction, you couldhave to escort somebody, and
that person that you know youwant to shine off or act like
you're better than that personcan be fucking you know getting

(01:25:49):
busy with you one day.
So you got to understand likeyou really got to have that
camaraderie.
You have to understand thatit's a marathon, it's not a
sprint.
You're going to be doing it fora long time and you're going to
have, you know, your good days,your bad days and days you want
to quit, but you just got tokeep fucking pushing.
But it ain't no job, it's awhole career and it could be a

(01:26:10):
good career if you make it oneFacts.
But there's a lot of wolves outthere, and I'm not just talking
about inmates.
Right, you have to figure outhow to be a sheepdog.
You know that's something thattakes time.
I never fully figured it out,but that's what I looked up to.

(01:26:30):
You know that's what youmentioned mentors.
I had a lot of good mentorsthat guided me and I looked up
to and my goal was to be likethem one day.
But you know my, my career gotcut short, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
How important, and can you give some report writing
tips, especially from a fuckingformer lieutenant bro that was
putting together incidentpackets Like what kind of shit
is required per dom and whatkind of shit were officers
leaving out?

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
You know, it really just depends, like for starting
off, writing you got tounderstand corrections is very,
very detailed.
You got to explain a lot moreshit than most police officers.
You have to be down to the Twith what type of arm you used,
what you did, how he landed.
You explain so much shit.

(01:27:13):
It's stupid.
But just for the bare minimum,when you get to work or you're
working a building and you startlooking up inmates, look up
their disciplinary and look upsome of your biggest stuff, the
biggest things that you're goingto deal with is you're going to
have a fighting and you'regoing to have batteries and then
you're going to have yourmedical emergencies that could

(01:27:36):
turn into a, an incident.
But just start reading thosereports, reading those reports.
Talk to your dispo officer.
Your dispo officer is dealingwith reports all day long.
Um, and just what I did for meis I created a template just to
make it easy.
Even as an officer, I'm like Idon't like using my baton.
I like to pepper spray people.

(01:27:56):
So let me figure out mydistance, let me figure out how
they're writing and just kind ofcreate a little template for
yourself, because you know whatyou're going to probably do the
majority of the time.
If you're not a baton guy, well, you're probably not going to
use a baton.
If you're a pepper spray guy oryou're hands-on, review those
two things right there.
Um, you know physical reports,uh, um, pepper spray stuff,

(01:28:20):
distance, um.
But yeah, as far as likemanagers, there's a lot of stuff
that they're looking for.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
Uh, closed body searches.
Unclosed body searches.
Searches of the holding celldecontamination yeah, all the
repetitive stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
You know, my my first controlled use of force, you
know I don't know what the fuckI was doing, but there's so much
stuff involved, so much policyand I'm just like damn, but you
know, but there has whatever anytype of incidents already been
done in prison.
You just got to look it up.
You know there ain't nothingthat we haven't done so well,
except for the, the uh delanoescape cedar hernandez oh yeah,

(01:28:58):
that was kind of a new onethat's different.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
It's kind of a wobbler.
Yeah yeah, I don't know aboutthat one, A wild card man, which
resulted in a death too Son ofa bitch.
But so that's report writing.
What other tips would you giveCOs embarking on this career
field?

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):
You know, at one time you used to have to be somewhat
physically fit for corrections.
It was mandatory.
You did like your physical oncea year, I think.
Now they just pay you for it,which is crazy, but this is
going to be your career, so yougot to understand.
The majority of time, yeah,you're going to be sitting on
your ass and it's going to bevery mental, right, you're going
to struggle mentally thanphysically, but you have to be

(01:29:42):
physically fit.
In my opinion, like, but youhave to.
You have to be physically fit,in my opinion, like the majority
of people that are physicallyfit or disciplined.
You know the majority ofcorrections are not physically
fit and then they lackdiscipline and it just trickles
down from there.
But I mean, if this is somethingyou want to do and you want to
be a correctional officer, tryto get in some type of good
workout routine.
Try to get into some type ofbasic martial arts, like you got

(01:30:04):
to know how, to the bareminimum of fighting at least,
and I don't mean to say that inlike a you know derogatory or
like bad way, but you might haveto save or help your partner
out in a situation and you don'twant to be that guy trying to
figure out how to fight in themiddle of that situation.
Right, um, figure out how tolike, like, carry yourself, like

(01:30:26):
.
Command presence is a big dealin prison and when you hit a
yard or you hit a building,you're going to have 100 or 200
dudes looking you up, sizing youup, looking at how you wear
your belt.
And it all starts with commandpresence, with being dressed
properly, with carrying yourselfproperly.
All the little stuff that youdon't think about.
Those those little things youhave to develop on your own.

(01:30:49):
But if you're thinking aboutgetting into it, figure out some
type of basic workout routinethat works for you, maybe
looking at some basic martialarts and, um, understand, you're
going to be uncomfortable awhole lot in your career, like
you're going gonna always feeluncomfortable every day you show
up, bro even at the padwondering, fuck, did I do that?

(01:31:10):
yeah, did I do that yeah, like,as an officer, you're gonna be
uncomfortable with situations,with your surroundings and
inmates.
As a supervisor, as a manager,you're uncomfortable with
paperwork you submitted orfucking incidents you cleared.
You know you're like oh shit,um, you're always going to be
uncomfortable, but you have totry to figure out how to be
comfortable being uncomfortableright, I could say it that way

(01:31:33):
but um well, that'll bring youto, and you mentioned mental
health, uh, positive copingskills, man.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
How important is it for a law enforcement officer to
have a life outside of the joband positive coping skills?

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
It's huge.
It's huge man.
You have to like I don't reallyknow how to say this, but I
mean I think every guy'sprobably done this You're going
to reach a point in your careerwhere you hit a low and you hit
a wall and you're going to feelisolated and alone and you're
going to try to reach out tosomebody.
You're going to call somebodyand you're not even going to

(01:32:10):
know what to say.
You're just going to callsomebody because you know you
need help, whether it's yourbrother, whether it's a friend,
whoever.
The majority of the time wewill never say anything.
You know, because there's been acouple of times I've called
people just because I needed totalk, but anything.
You know because there's been acouple of times I've called
people just because I needed totalk but I didn't know what to
say.
You know I'm thinking fuck,what do I say?

(01:32:30):
What do I say when somebodycalls you?
That is law enforcement or incorrections.
If they call you at two in thefucking morning, I'm not talking
about a Sancho girl, I'mtalking about like a dude
calling another dude.
If somebody calls you,understand that they're calling
you for a reason.
Honestly, it's a cry for help.
So, fucking, if they're nottalking, try to talk to them,
try to listen to them, try to bethere for them.
I've had a few people call me,text me in the middle of the

(01:32:52):
night and I knew they neededsomething.
I just didn't understand at thetime.
You know what I mean and I feellike the majority of us are so
isolated and don't know how totalk.
We have to be there for eachother, like we have to be able
to say what's up, man, nothing.
And I I knew just being therewith that person was all he

(01:33:14):
needed.
Right, I didn't need to talk, Ididn't need to fucking uh, you
know, be a pastor, fuckingpriest.
You know I didn't need tonothing, I just needed to be
there with him in the moment andI did, and you know it helped
him lift whatever shit he hadgoing on at the time.
And you know those kind ofthings are big.

(01:33:35):
You know I've seen a lot ofhorrible things and people take
their life and stuff and I thinkwe need to understand, like we
need to help each other out asmuch as we can.
Like we're battling our owndemons.
We're fucked up in the head.
You know you're not working ata bank where you're eight to
four signing checks off whatever.

(01:33:55):
No, you're working in an areathat's dark, that's cold.
You're going to be immune toseeing fights.
You're going to be immune toseeing blood, dead bodies bro.
Yeah, people kill themselves.
That whole asuna thing was amess.
uh, overdoses hangings yeah,well, I went when asuna did all
that.
Um, he went into r&r and Italked to him for a minute and I
remember him I was amen, yougood.

(01:34:16):
He's like, oh, I'm just tired,what the fuck bro?
You know how disgusting that is.
I was like goddamn.
But you know, to us that'snormal, right, and I'm sitting
there eating my fuckingSmucker's BB and J sandwich,
right.
Like oh, okay, that's cool, butyou walk away and these little
things they kind of build up inyour head over time.
But yeah, man.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Well, what it does?
It desensitizes you and in turn, and in my case, it affects
your relationship with yourspouse.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
Man.
Yeah, 100%.
People say, hey, I'm worriedabout so-and-so when they go to
work.
No, worry about him when hegoes home.
Worry about him when he's atthe house and he's isolating
himself and he's not talking tohis kids.
That's when he needs the mosthelp, because he shouldn't be
just by himself and he's notgoing to feel comfortable to
talk.
But that's you as a partner,man or woman.

(01:35:01):
You got to talk to your partner, you got to help your partner
because he doesn't reallyunderstand how to deal with what
he's dealing with.
And it starts there at thehouse.
You know what I mean, which isnormal.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
It's normal for people not to understand what
they're initially experiencing,but I mean, that's why we have
these platforms and people likeyou come on and explain these
situations.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Yeah, I've learned a lot from you, man, and I try to
pick my head up and keeptrucking.
And you know there's a lot ofnegativity, a lot of people put
me down and shit on me my wholecareer.
But I always just kind of toldmyself like I want to be the
person that's going to be ableto help somebody any way I can.
And you've been doing that,dude.
I've been trying, you know, andlittle by little I get little
feedback.
Hey, alex, thanks for doingthis, thanks for doing that.

(01:35:41):
And like me mentally, um, youknow I struggle with depression
and anxiety, but being able tohelp somebody as a man like that
makes me feel good.
You know, I feel honored to dothat and I'm not helping it like
the whole world, but if I couldhelp one person, dude, man,
it's huge.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
so you're on tiktok, man, you're on tiktok under
corrections unlocked.
Yeah, yeah, correctionsunlocked.
And I actually my manager, he'sthe one that books these
studios and I told you, man, hesent me your screenshot.
I'm like fuck, I know that dude, I've watched his videos and I
appreciate your get down, bro,your style, the way you present
yourself and the tips that yougive the public, man, especially

(01:36:19):
these new cops.
So where can they find you?
What kind of content can theyexpect from you on there?

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
You know, when I started the whole thing, I was
just trying to give tips to helppeople out with things that
I've experienced and issues thatI've struggled with, and it was
just to kind of just show youlike hey, this didn't work for
me, this is what I recommend.
And when I first started, like,it was just full of negative
who the fuck are you?
You don't know anything.
And negative who the fuck areyou?
You don't know anything.
Stop trying to act like youknow it all.

(01:36:46):
But not once did I ever talkabout like what I've done or who
I am.
That's not my get down.
I've always just wanted to help.
And so I started doing that,started doing that and then I
had my whole issue at work.
So for three months I just hita wall.
I didn't record, I didn't doanything, and a few people
reached out to me and said hey D, just because you don't work
there doesn't mean you can'ttalk about it.
So I did a couple videos andstarted getting a lot of views

(01:37:11):
and it turned into a realpositive thing, not only for
people but for myself.
It makes me feel good to helppeople out.
But yeah, it's CorrectionsUnlocked.
Alex Duran is my name and Ijust started a little YouTube
page a couple months ago.
I'm still trying to figure outhow to do all that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:28):
What's the handle on that?

Speaker 2 (01:37:30):
You know, I just haven't figured out the whole
recording stuff.
Don't worry, man.

Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
We'll talk about it offline.
We'll get you going dude.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
But just Corrections Unlocked.
That's my name on TikTok, onYouTube and Instagram.
I just made an Instagramaccount.
Hell, yeah, bro.
Yeah, I got six followers.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
Fuck, yeah, man, that's where you start, dude.
Yeah, this is a lengthy process, man.
It's daily and, like you said,it's all about helping and
giving back.

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
Yeah, you know I just record to record, but you know,
talking to like therapists hereand there they're like, hey,
why don't you just talk aboutthings that you know and things
that you like to do if it helpsyou out?
So I stepped out of my comfortzone to do that Cause.
Honestly, dude, I'm a quietperson.
I'm kind of weird and goofy, umsort of put myself on a, on a

(01:38:12):
camera and talk.
I was like what the fuck am Idoing?
You get used to it, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
Yeah, so it turned into a positive thing for me,
but yeah, you could you couldhit me up or reach out or watch
my stuff on tiktok oncorrections unlocked cool man.
Well, I want to thank you, dude, for coming down here.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
Bro, I was a long drive man and sharing a lot of
fucking wealth and experienceand knowledge.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
Dude I appreciate it, hector.
Appreciate the opportunity man.
Anytime, bro, hit me up.
You got my number and we'llchop it up.
Dude, cool.
Well, there you guys have it.
Folks, man, you guys asked for.
You want to hear more peoplefrom cdcr?
We brought in a good formerlieutenant today.
If you like what you saw, makesure you hit that subscribe
button.
Love you keep pushing forwardunhinged line.

(01:38:56):
Hector's legend, engravedliving life raw, never been
tamed.
From the hood to the truthentails pen.

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
Hectorector Bravo unhinged Story never ends.

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