I was sentenced to 75 to 150 years for kidnapping and 2 to 5 years for Felony Fire Arm. Most people first thought is wow what a monster! No one ever bothered to look deeper into why I did what I did. I am not saying what I did was right, but in my mind and my eyes I was right and everything about what I did was right! That’s the mind mentality I was raised to have.

Growing up, my father taught my brothers and sisters how to take care of ourselves and each other. I remember once a friend had given me toy as a gift because he knew how much I had wanted a transformer and he had all of them. I went home all happy I pulled it out my backpack and my dad asked where did I get it from? I responded and said from my friend he looked at me with an evil look and said you don’t have no friends your friends are your brother’s and sister’s take it back!!

We were raised in a strict household. He would beat me for getting bad grades but yet didn’t teach me how to do the work. He would look for any reason to whoop my ass. Being a snitch was the worst thing you could do in my father’s eyes and was not tolerated! I respected my father for how he raised me strong, resilient, ambitious, and a survivor. But my dad was a trip, he would beat me for getting bad grades in school but praised me for fighting. So once I seen I could gain his love and respect by fighting, I did it more and more.

I wasn’t like that as a youngin. Until one day when I was around 9 years old. My dad saw four kids come by on bike calling me a pussy and wet back and a lot of other shit and I didn’t say anything. My dad came out the garage from where he watched. He asked why I didn’t do anything to them when they were disrespecting me, I responded and said there is 4 of them and they were bigger than me and he looked at me with a crazy ass look. He grabbed me by my arm walked me to the street and stopped the group of boys and pointed to one and said beat his ass. I looked back at him frozen and he said, “if you don’t beat his ass I’m gonna beat yours.” I snapped out of it real quick and beat his ass! And then he pointed to the next kid I hit him off his bike and he pointed to the next by time I went to get the 4th he took off booking.

My dad was watching me and loving every minute of it. My dad was so proud of me later that day he took me to McDonald’s and bought me whatever I wanted. Now maybe that wouldn’t be much to any kid now but back then to me that was something big and I now knew how I could gain my father’s love and how I could make him proud of me. I fought and fought a lot. And when I got suspended from school all he would say is did you win? This is how we grew up. This is what we knew was right.

I once heard a boy at the playground call my little sister Solie a bitch. She must have been about 11 at the time. I walked over to her and told her why you let that kid disrespect you like that ? She said he’s a boy, I told her go over there and beat the dog shit out that kid or I’m gonna beat your ass. I watched my little sister walk up to this boy and who was bigger than her and beat the dog shit out his ass as she was told, and I stood there proud! And now my sister knew how she could gain love and respect. We did not know at the time, but now the cycle continued, a Corrupted mind, the only way we knew was right.

Fast forward a decade. I am now 22 years old. It’s 1998. I’m in Toledo, Ohio ready to take care of business. My brother had received a call from someone who wanted 25lbs. I said check this and go take care of it. This was my thing. My life was in the streets. Being in the middle of shit. In the thick of it. I went there thinking quick swap and I’m out. But it was not what I expected I was set up with a gun to my head. I was not meant to make it out of there alive, none of us were. But against all odds we did.

I kidnapped the guy who set the deal up for us to get robbed and killed. Made him tell me who his boys were. I drove him out to a cornfield and did what I was taught to do as a kid handle your shit. This cat had set me up not to only get robbed for a petty ass 25lbs but also to have us killed. We got away because of how we were raised to be savages! So, in my eyes I served those fools justice. Some states serve the same justice.

I have been in prison now over 20 years and till this day I still feel I did nothing wrong. If this is how I was programmed from a baby, am I wrong for thinking I did nothing wrong?? There was nothing innocent about the person I had killed in my eyes. Now I can only wonder is there something mentally wrong with me? Some will agree there is and well I struggle with that myself but I have to question had I been brought up differently like a normal kid would I be sitting here? Would my brother be sitting in here? Would my sisters have been in all the shit they been in and would their kids ?? These are all questions I that I ponder on .

###CorruptedMinds ###BreakTheCycleBeforeItsToLateForYouAndYours###

David S

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