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Damon West: Sentenced to Life in Prison at Age 32 | E119 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Damon West: I fell in love with crystal meth. It's the most evil, most destructive, most addictive drug ever created by me. I smoked it one time. I was instantly hooked just like that random. And I'm talking about hooked to the point where I start giving everything away.
• 0:11
  Damon West: Because that's what addicts do.
• 0:14
  Damon West: We give things away addicts give up their goals, to meet their behavior, and it's in the period where I'm studying for my series seven series 63 and past I will sleep at work one to one day because I've been up party in the weekend before doing blow and stuff like that. So the broker comes up, he sees me sleeping, he wakes me up, and he's visibly shaken. He's like, man, you can't sleep on this job. Damon, markets are open.
• 0:36
  Damon West: You're messing with people's money, they'll fire you. He said, come on down the parking garage. I got someone pick you up. So I'll follow him down the parking garage at a random walk into his high school sports car.
• 0:44
  Damon West: And he hands me this glass pipe with these crystal rocks in it.
• 0:47
  Damon West: Now I've never seen a glass pipe before I didn't know which we put in a glass pipe. And I'm like a little bit on my head. Am I Well, what is that man? He's like Damon just throwbacks. It's crystal meth. He said you're gonna love the stuff. Truer words have never been spoken brother. What I'm saying that I mean this any You can be addicted to anything in life food, money, clothing, shopping, sex, gambling, pornography, the internet, Instagram, whatever it is. An addict gives up their goals to meet their behaviors driven people focus be successful people. They'll give up a bad behavior to meet a goal. That's how you know if you're an addict. If you start giving away the things are important in life over something, anything, your addiction issues.
• 1:30
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to the Search of Excellence where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellent with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Damon West, Damon has one of the most incredible and inspirational stories I've ever heard in my life. He's a former meth addict and head of an organized crime ring, who ascends to life in prison, who is now a college professor at the University of Houston one of the most sought after motivational speakers in the world. He's the author of four best selling books that have collectively sold more than 10 million copies, and been translated into more than 30 languages. His books are the change agent, how a former college quarterback sentenced to life in prison transformed his world. The coffee being a simple lesson to create positive change, how to be a coffee being 111 life changing ways to create positive change, which he wrote with our friend John Gordon, and the locker room how great teams he'll hurt, overcome adversity and build unity. Damon is also a dedicated philanthropist. He started the coffee bean Foundation to help provide for children of incarcerated parents. One of the reasons of which is because a child of an incarcerated parent is almost 50% more likely to go to prison themselves. One day, Damon, thanks for being here. Welcome to the church of excellence.
• 3:03
  Damon West: Randall, thanks so much for letting me be here today. I've been waiting for this for a long time to be in your studio. Listen, man, one of the cool things is I've got to watch you grow as you've got to watch me grow. Right? We became friends a few years ago, and I've watched the ascension watch arise. I'm honored to be here, brother. Thank you for having me today. No, thanks.
• 3:19
  Randall Kaplan: Thanks for being here. I mean, we did a show two years ago when I was just starting out. And you wanted to do it in person, which says a lot about you flew here specifically to do a show today.
• 3:28
  Randall Kaplan: I'm so grateful. And we're gonna have just a ton of fun today,
• 3:32
  Damon West: I wanted to redo me because we did that show and not that the content wasn't good.
• 3:35
  Damon West: But the quality wasn't the best we could do. Right? And if you're an overachiever, which I know you are, and I am to, you want it to be perfect, especially if you can friends with that person. I've become friends with you. And I'm like, I've got to get to LA to do random show. So I mean, like I get I got to speak tomorrow, right outside of LA. I'm like, you called you up. You're like you made it happens. Thank you.
• 3:55
  Randall Kaplan: I love it. Let's start at the beginning. You're raised in Port Arthur, Texas, to what you have said is a dream family. Talk to us about your mom, and then especially your dad, in the sense that how it is that you can stand alone, in spite of all the pressure against doing the right thing.
• 4:14
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah.
• 4:15
  Damon West: Great. I came from a great family, right. My parents were married for 55 years and my father just recently passed away but 55 years there's two parent home. My mom's a schoolteacher and a nurse. My father is a sportswriter, Gods at the center of everything. You know, this is a wholesome Texas town, middle class family. My dad was a very famous sports writer too. He was the first sports writer in Southeast Texas to put black athletes on the front page of sports pages, which is 1971 1971 this this football player named Joe Washington Jr. who goes on to play pro football. But when my dad does that, and 71 he starts getting his tires slashed. You know, people break his windows out, they send a bunch of hate mail to him. But my dad saved all that hate mail.
• 4:55
  Damon West: And when I was a little boy growing up, he made me read the hate mail me Have you read every nasty negative word that people said about my father and my mother? Because my dad puts a black guy on the cover of Sports, right? But he told me this Randall. He said, Damon, I want you to see what it looks like to take a stand and do the right thing. Because he said sometimes Daymond taking a stand and doing the right thing means you're gonna stand alone. But he said, it's always okay to stand alone as long as you're standing on the right side of history. So I had a tremendous influence my parents, right they raised me right came from a great home, I was a good student, great athlete. God blessed me with a cannon for a right arm. And back in Texas, we got this little thing your listeners may have heard of called high school football. Friday Night Lights, right. This is where it originated from. It's the biggest thing ever. I grew up in it. I grew up in it's a toxicated to grow up and you're the man and Friday Night Lights.
• 5:40
  Damon West: I'm the star quarterback for my town. A three year starting quarterback for a five year school, it was the biggest division we had Texas back then, stud quarterback, everything's going my way I get a scholarship to a division one college football at the University of North Texas. By the time I'm 20.
• 5:54
  Damon West: I'm gonna starting quarterback for division one team in America. And I thought I thought I had arrived random my head was this big but but life as we know gives us these days that I call fork in the road days. And those are the days you get knocked down hard you get up, you dust yourself off, but you make a choice to fork in the road. And you either you make the right choice to go the right way the wrong choice to go the wrong direction. Let's
• 6:17
  Randall Kaplan: talk about the first four. You were nine years old and you were molested at nine years old. Babysitter. Yes.
• 6:22
  Randall Kaplan: So I think we all have challenges in our life that happened to young kid I was bullied. I stuttered. Sure, but it was nothing like that. So can you get into some of the details if you're comfortable in terms of what Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:33
  Damon West: It was a female babysitter that my parents to her she was 18 years old. So she's an adult. And we start experimenting sexually stuff did everything but have intercourse you started.
• 6:44
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, like you're nine years old. I mean, it's you don't just start I mean, say hey, what was her name? First Name it we're not gonna get into her last name.
• 6:53
  Randall Kaplan: We'll
• 6:53
  Damon West: see. We'll call her Sheila will call. Yeah, let's let's change the name. Of course. Yeah. So we'll say she will say Sheila. Yeah. So So Sheila,
• 7:01
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, she's 18. Yeah. And she's making the move on you. You're nine years old? No one. No one? No. Nine year old? Yeah. Is reading Playboy at that at that. Yeah, they are interested in that. No, but
• 7:12
  Damon West: I mean, she makes the first move on it, of course.
• 7:15
  Damon West: And then it starts, you know, cascading into more and more stuff. And, you know, there's stuff you're feeling. Here's the way I just I can describe it to you. When I was nine years old, I got introduced to some very big adult behaviors. Think about it like this, like a big door, right? That big door, when you're a little kid you can't get on this other door. It's chained. It's padlock, it's got two key locks, you can't get into it, that's the adult door.
• 7:38
  Damon West: But if some adult let you enter that door one day, because they have all the keys to it, you walk into the side of that door.
• 7:45
  Damon West: Now on the other side of it, there's all these other doors that are just flung open, there's no locks and then decide. Because once you're adults, you can go through any door you want. One of them was drinking and doing drugs, having sex doing all these different things that are adult behaviors.
• 7:58
  Damon West: When I was nine, I got on the other side of that door man, I was on the other side of the adult door at nine years old.
• 8:03
  Damon West: And here's what happened to me Randall from the whole thing is I got introduced to adult behaviors at a really young age and I liked it. I liked it a lot. It affected every relationship I had after that, because everything after that became something of a sexual nature, right? At
• 8:20
  Randall Kaplan: nine years old at 10 years old. I know you began drinking at 10 years old smoking pot at 12. But at nine years old and 10 years old.
• 8:25
  Randall Kaplan: You're thinking of sexual thoughts the entire time. Yeah,
• 8:29
  Damon West: I just been introduced to something like nope, no nine year old gets introduced to right. So my, that's the thought of when I was 12 was the first time I've ever had I ever had sex right at
• 8:38
  Randall Kaplan: 12 years old at 12 years old with someone other than the baby someone other than the babysitter we'd never had intercourse. So how old was the woman at 12 years old? You
• 8:47
  Damon West: had sex? 14? She's 14 I was 12.
• 8:49
  Randall Kaplan: And how did that come about? Just was it just a friend? And oh, I
• 8:53
  Damon West: can Yeah, I can tell you it was 1988. I remember the year and I was 1988. I was 12 years old. My I was I was staying at a friend's house for my parents were out of town that weekend. So all my two brothers went stayed at different friend's house, I stayed at another friend's house. And that friend had a sister who's 14 years old. And you know, throughout the weekend, there were so you know, vibes going on and stuff like that. And I'm like, so it happens. You know that weekend. 12 years old, it happened 98 But that was where I was focused. Every relationship I had random I'm telling you it was infected with this thing about sex. And the other bad part about relationships for me is that it was always about me it was a very selfish thing. And relationships are two way streets. I don't even understand relationships in my life until I get to a point later in life where I work a program recovery 12 Step Program recovery right?
• 9:42
  Damon West: Arrested Development happens for me at nine years old when it comes to like sexuality, sexuality and selfishness and stuff like that. So yeah, I was very stunted in my growth after that. That's what happened to me. At nine years old. I got introduced to some adult behaviors that most people But don't get understood that age that you don't need to be introduced to that age, right?
• 10:03
  Damon West: So when I talk about that, it's always like to denote that the molestation thing. It wasn't one of those events where it was traumatic for me like it is for a lot of people, they get molested, right. A lot of people get molested. It's very traumatic. For me. It was that introduction to another world that I didn't need to be introduced to at that time.
• 10:21
  Damon West: That's what it did for
• 10:22
  Randall Kaplan: me. Many kids who are a blessing, it's a horrific problem. Yeah, they're ashamed. And they don't tell their parents. Yeah. So I think we should send a message to all the people out there today who have been molested to go seek help. Absolutely go and to go get help. Because I think it's very hard to recover from
• 11:33
  Damon West: your what you're spot on, you're hitting the next part of this thing. And so my parents sent me to a family for family psychiatrists.
• 11:39
  Randall Kaplan: He told them what happened. I told him what happened? How long after it happened? Did you tell him
• 11:43
  Damon West: that six months into it, and it came out in a conversation? My brothers knew something was going on. Because I mean, I got two brothers at the time, there's something going on. So it came out in the conversation. And I mean, it wasn't a cry for help kind of thing. He was just like, hey, you know this, this is going on.
• 11:57
  Damon West: And of course, you know, babysitters fired immediately.
• 12:01
  Damon West: This is 1980s. They're not going to press charges on a female babysitter. And that's another thing about it to brand Well, this is a female babysitter this has happened with right so one fewer
• 12:12
  Randall Kaplan: flip. There'll be very different. Oh, yeah.
• 12:14
  Randall Kaplan: Surprises. Oh, yeah. Be very different
• 12:16
  Damon West: consequences. Right.
• 12:16
  Damon West: So I'm not, I'm not here to diminish anybody's seriousness that they've had with molestation. But what happened to me is I got introduced those don't behave like I told you, I'm on the other side of that door. Now at 10. I get into see my dad drinking beer all the time. You know, not all the time. He had a beer, you know, every now and then. But there's beer in the fridge. I got into my beer got into his beer one day, like the way that it tastes like the way the alcohol felt my system at 10 years old Randall.
• 12:40
  Damon West: My mom smokes cigarettes at the time, I started stealing my mom's cigarettes and smoking cigarettes when I'm 1011 years old. 12. Now I'm smoking joint, a joint for the first time in sixth grade. I'm having sex for the first time in sixth grade.
• 12:51
  Damon West: You see the progression of adult behaviors. It's happening for this kid that was once on the other side of that big door.
• 12:58
  Randall Kaplan: And you're a stud athlete, right? And I mean, like you said, Friday lights and Texas is everything. So the girl I mean, you're a very good looking guy. Great personality.
• 13:07
  Randall Kaplan: So are you just the man at high school and just Oh, I was so full of myself too. And no one's telling you something negative either, right? No, man. No, you didn't want to hear it anyway, even if they did know,
• 13:19
  Damon West: man. And I mean, and I knew I was. I was very cocky, very arrogant. back then. I hadn't been I hadn't been humbled yet. Right? Like that was going to come later in life when I got really humbled. But yeah, I was really cocky, arrogant guy. You know? You're a starting quarterback for a five a school for three years. Your work? You got some juice, man, you're good. Because that's the biggest division. It was in high school football back then you get a scholarship to play. Do you one? Yeah, you're pretty good.
• 13:41
  Randall Kaplan: But when did you first learn that you had the cannon for an arm? How old? Were you doing that? Oh, God, I'll
• 13:45
  Damon West: tell you. Whenever I was 11 years old, up until the point where I was 10 or 11. I was the last pick in every sport for everything. I had no idea that I was a good athlete. This coach named John Bass was well Little League baseball coach when I was 11 years old. He sees something in me that no other coach had ever seen. Because these are you know, these are parents that teach the coach the teens, but he was a real coach.
• 14:09
  Damon West: He's like, man, you have the best eye hand coordination I've ever seen. If you'll listen to me, let me instruct you. I can make you to a great player. That year, I won the batting title and a little league, you know, then I'm throwing the baseball around. He's like, Man, you've got a cannon for an arm with get you thrown with the right mechanics. Now I'm throwing the ball in the 70s when I'm 12 years old, you know 70s By the time I'm in high school in the high 80s, low 90s, High 80s That kind of thing. I pick up a football and in seventh grade, I can throw that thing to then I start working out really hard because I fell in love with playing quarterback. I love the role a quarterback ran I mean the quarterback. Ease the simple sort of cerebral position. First of all, in all sports. Yeah, you got to know what the 11 guys on defense are doing. What your 11 Guys on offense are doing. You got to know what everybody you're the general on the field.
• 14:51
  Damon West: You've got the decision making power. And I love the idea that the quarterback was the man that touched the ball every play, you know on offense. That was something I wanted man, I wanted the spotlight I wanted to the one of the responsibility of hitting the ball in my hand.
• 15:07
  Randall Kaplan: I think we've talked about this. I didn't play football. I never played it down. I've seen you throw a ball but I I've seen you throw a ball. Yeah. So the highlight of my career and I never played football and I think I shared this with you. I'll share with the viewers and listeners today was I'm in a wedding and Baker's bay in the Bahamas and there was this guy John and me, you know, stocky guy. Oh, you know, let's throw the ball and he said I can really feel it. I'm like, Well, I kind of throw it to so we get out there and he's, you know, you warm up and you want to warm up the arm right and just kind of get it going and he's firing bullets, right? Oh man, you know, whatever. Tom Brady is at this wedding and Giselle is there too. So you got the water the beach. Giselle is maybe 100 yards Up in the shade reading a book, and this guy can backup back up and you know, once you got the arm ready and you got the tight spirals, okay, whatever. So we're 20 yards 2530 35. And like 35 He's, he's having to come in and I'm having to come in to catch his ball.
• 16:08
  Randall Kaplan: But I'm having no problem with you know, yeah, it's viral and it's, you know, there's a little bit of work on it, but not that much. And, you know, they're coming in hard. And it finally goes okay, back now we're about 40 yards. And for 140 Come back.
• 16:19
  Randall Kaplan: And then I said, Okay, back up, back up. And he goes like this.
• 16:25
  Randall Kaplan: There's no way man and Tom Brady. I see walking behind me.
• 16:27
  Randall Kaplan: So Tom's walk in this way. And my wife is right here, just watching and she's just chilling in the sun watching. You're watching Tom. Tom. So her bat, so she was facing the water, and Tom was walking behind her towards us. Yeah. And I'm here and he's walking this way. But I can see him a quarter mile. He's gone in the water. And so I waited, I pause and as Tom was walking by, I fucking let one loose. I mean, I throw it 50 yards. I went way over this guy's head. And Tom stops and he said, Holy shit, what a cannon and a goat tell me I got a candidate was the best thing.
• 17:08
  Randall Kaplan: And my wife is sitting there and she said, I heard it. I heard it. I want to hear it for the rest of my life. I said, You're damn right. You're gonna hear for the rest. Absolutely. Oh, that was the best moment I let it grow for a guy that never never played a
• 17:20
  Damon West: down a football.
• 17:20
  Damon West: That's a cool story. Randall.
• 17:22
  Damon West: That's really cool. Yeah, it's
• 17:24
  Randall Kaplan: cool. So you said you're the star on the team. You're the guy who said what comes up must come down.
• 17:31
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah. So talk to us about that.
• 17:31
  Randall Kaplan: What do you mean by that?
• 17:33
  Damon West: Yeah, what goes up must come down. Like I'm I'd function at a very high level isn't that because I work hard at random. I got up every morning. What other everybody else was? This is high school man. I get up every morning I'm running. I go to the weight room. I've got a tire swing in the field across from my house.
• 17:49
  Damon West: I've got a bag of footballs. I'm doing stuff no one else do because I want to go play college football. I want to be a division one college quarterback. Problem is I'm five foot 10 Right. This is back in the early 90s No one wanted 510 quarterbacks there wasn't this Johnny Manziel thing and Drew Brees Drew Brees this is way before all these people and so my dad who's a sports writer. He is a he knows how the game is played. So recruiting is going on and football and I'm being recruited by everybody because he said hey Damon, my dad six two my older brothers six three, my mom's like 5758 You're gonna grow you know, don't worry about that. So what we're gonna do in these highlight films, you made little VCR tapes, your highlight films of all your stuff, and I had a great junior year random I'm going like I'm a Bucha quarterback This is before they hit the star system. I'm one of the best quarterbacks rated in America going into my senior year. And my dad we've put out there that I'm like, six one or six like 175 pounds. So all these colleges are watching this tape of this guy with this camera guy so I get those 65 yards you know 70 yards sick man. I'm chucking the ball.
• 18:55
  Damon West: Three quarters of the field out there in some of these plays, right? Cannon six prototypical size. Dude, everybody and being recruited by Miami, Florida State Florida think about Florida State Florida Miami and early 90s Yeah, this was a coach back Bobby Bowden was the coach back then. Terry Donnie, he was a coach at UCLA at the time Yeah, so all these big schools are recruiting me man and I think man this is great all the school I can I watch college football my dad on Saturdays, right? I'm gonna go play for one of these big So Steve's burgers right? Me handwritten letters from University of Florida, right. So, in the spring going into my senior year, we're wrapping up spring football.
• 19:31
  Damon West: Just came off that good junior year, Terry Donohue from UCLA is coming into Port Arthur, Texas.
• 19:38
  Damon West: He wants to see this stud quarterback this boot ship and Damon West gets to the parking lot pulls up. And I see him getting out and I'm like, man, it's tearing down so I'm warming up and you know, doing what you're doing throwing the football putting one more pepper on it warming up the guy more it's getting so standard I'm warming up with and I see him talking to my head coach and they had this conversation on your flannel and stuff like that. And he gets in his car and he leaves so after after practice I'm dying to know what's going on and why did he not stay Where's Teradata, you were to go after practice. My My coach told me. He said, Man, listen, you came out here. And you first of all, he said, Where's where's West? I want to see I'm here to see West and he points east west is warming up over there. He said, Well, I thought West was white. Because they got warmed up with the black guy. He's tall. He said, Yeah, yeah, he's a white guy sitting next to black woman with the black guy. And he said that that guy's not six to how tall is where's he's like, look, he's 510 But he's gonna grow you know, and he's like, I don't want to hear about somebody's gonna grow and Terry Donohue leaves that day, and he lets everybody in America know that Damon West is 510 And that's when the word I've never told the story before actually on the podcast. That's when the word got out that I wasn't really this prototypical size. The game was up, you know the lie that we had going Knowing the highlight films, it was eventually going to get caught because I didn't grow. But everybody dropped me man. None of these schools wanted to recruit me anymore. I ended up playing Sunday University North Texas division one college football University in North Texas. And man, I went out there with a chip on my shoulder and a chip on your shoulder is not a bad thing to have sometimes. You mean you could play at a different level when you're playing with something right? They're reminding you and Tom Brady had a big chip on his shoulder massive chip and showed he was Mr. insignificant, right? Yeah.
• 21:21
  Damon West: But I had a big chip on my shoulder playing college football and I went in there and eventually earned that starting job when I was 20 years old. My redshirt sophomore years. I'm three years into college football. redshirted my whole first year, played a little bit my redshirt freshman year, and then redshirt sophomore year.
• 21:35
  Damon West: Second game of the season. I get the starting job first game first game ever started was going to Arizona State Jake Palmer is a quarterback Pat Tillman's on that team but he gets Pat Tillman but it's all those guys they were number two in the nation that year. Great American
• 21:48
  Randall Kaplan: hero for those people who don't know the one liner on Pat Tillman. Yeah, he's
• 21:53
  Damon West: he was he was incredible player too, by the way. I mean, vicious on the field for wrote how people
• 21:58
  Randall Kaplan: what what what happened? He left the pros. Oh, yeah. So we're here to go to Afghanistan, I believe. Yeah, he played for the Arizona Cardinals
• 22:06
  Damon West: his dream of playing pro football. After September 11. We go to war and Afghanistan and Iraq. He leaves the NFL dream, dream job, everything money to go defend this country and become an Army Ranger. And he's killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. A couple years later, or maybe a year later. I remember exactly the time when I read they read the book and in prison boots on the ground by dusk. So true American hero, true American hero. This guy walked away from the NFL to go fight for his country. Yeah. And I can tell you man just from playing against that one game.
• 22:35
  Damon West: He was vicious in the field man just brutal on the field swung me around after the game comes up gives me a hug, man. Great job. You did great. Took it.
• 22:44
  Damon West: Well, you know, super nice guy.
• 22:44
  Damon West: But when you're on you're in between the 60 minutes playing a game against him. He was he was ferocious. He's a great competitor.
• 22:51
  Randall Kaplan: So let's talk about your you're done with college, you go to work in DC.
• 22:54
  Randall Kaplan: And as a stockbroker, and then some guy invited down to his car. Yes, because you retire. So
• 23:04
  Damon West: yeah. The week after the Arizona State game, playing his Texas a&m Third play that game. I'll go down career knee injury careers over college football prematurely, and it's really a big fork in the road.
• 23:14
  Damon West: For me. That's when I get into hardcore drugs. The hallmark of being an addict is that you can't live life on life's terms.
• 23:19
  Damon West: That's what addicts do. We don't live life on life's terms. We put in chemicals. Now I'm doing cocaine, ecstasy pills. I'm partying a lot. My grades are suffering. But I'm functional enough to graduate college and 99 move off to Washington DC, where the United States Congress, actually that I worked for guy running for president doing political fundraising all over America for this guy running for president knighted states who didn't get heart.
• 23:42
  Damon West: Okay. The gap was a majority minority leader of the US House, Democrat from Missouri. Okay.
• 23:46
  Damon West: So, after dig drops out of the race, I moved back to Dallas in 2004 to be a stockbroker. Now imagine I'm getting ready to go be a broker dealer for UBS, United Bank of Switzerland. And I've just been dealing with millionaires and billionaires doing fundraising. I've got a book I've got a book like this of people with money. And so UBS is like yes, come work for us and I go to Dallas and go become God gotta be a stockbroker. And it's in the period where I'm studying for my series seven a series 63 and passed out asleep at work one to one day, because I've been up partying the weekend before doing blow and stuff like that. So the broker comes up, he sees me sleeping, he wakes me up, and he's visibly shaken. He's like, man, you can't sleep on this job. Damon, markets are open your mess with people's money, they'll fire you. He said, come on down the parking garage. I got some pick you up. So I'll follow him down the parking garage that day random we get into his nice little sports car. And he hands me this glass pipe with these crystal rocks in it. Now, I've never seen a glass pipe before.
• 24:42
  Damon West: I didn't know which we put in a glass pipe. And I might go a little bit on my head. Am I Well, what is that man? He's like Daymond just throwbacks.
• 24:51
  Damon West: It's crystal meth. He said you're gonna love this stuff.
• 24:56
  Damon West: Truer words have never been spoken brother. I fell in love with crystal meth. It's the most evil, most destructive, most addictive drug ever created by me. I smoked it one time. I was instantly hooked just like that Randall and I'm talking about hooked to the point where I start giving everything away.
• 25:11
  Damon West: Because that's what addicts do.
• 25:11
  Damon West: We give things away addicts give up their goals to meet their behaviors. When I'm saying that I mean this any You can be addicted to anything in life food, money, clothing, shopping, sex, gambling, pornography, the internet, Instagram, whatever it is. An addict gives up their goals to meet their behaviors driven people focus people, successful people, they'll give up a bad behavior to meet a goal. That's how you know if you're an addict. If you start giving away the things are important in life over something anything. You got addiction issues.
• 25:42
  Randall Kaplan: So So one of the things that I want to digress for one minute because I was having dinner last night, my wife and I with a friend very successful guy Who has been in the program now? 15 years, just has 15 year chip, and was working on Wall Street, very successful in New York and finally realized he had a problem, highly functioning, making millions of dollars a year. And even in the community where we live and throughout the country, there's a lot of very high functioning people doing cocaine every day and doing drugs. It's I've never done drugs before. And I'm very surprised how it's very common in the workforce, way more than I thought highly functioning successful people. Let's give a little encouragement to all the people out there today. If you're doing drugs, doing cocaine, I mean, these are people that have families, kids, young kids, I've seen people doing cocaine at kids parties, you know, lions on the table, and I'm just I'm blown away.
• 26:43
  Damon West: Yeah, it'd be tough to be a kid right now too, especially with the fentanyl and everything else that's in drugs for I don't I don't think I'd be alive right now. If I were still out in the street doing drugs because of what's in what's laced in a lot of the drugs
• 26:53
  Randall Kaplan: right kids out are bringing kids and college cocaine is ramping and college are bringing fentanyl test you know before they do cocaine now that's things that are standard for a lot of kids who are doing even recreational not not not daily, which is just crazy, crazy.
• 27:11
  Damon West: It's it's crazy that we're at that point in America like that, but but I get the I get the addiction stuff you're talking about. I was a very functional addict for a very long time. But once I touched crystal meth, that was over man, I thought it was a wonder drug at first, right? I'm up for three, four to eight, and get all this stuff done. But what goes up, must come down.
• 27:28
  Damon West: Alright,
• 27:31
  Randall Kaplan: let's talk about the Dow now.
• 27:32
  Damon West: So we're coming down now at this point, what that said, we're coming down. We're
• 27:36
  Randall Kaplan: coming down now.
• 27:36
  Randall Kaplan: So you smoke it for the first time. And then you became a drug kingpin, walk us through how it came from daily use to dealing to being a king pan and then talk about someone just crashing through the living room one day after three years people trying to find you. Yeah,
• 27:54
  Damon West: so in the word kingpin like well, we'll back up until the audience that the mastermind of the organized crime rate I wasn't ever a drug kingpin, because I was so addicted to drugs. I couldn't be a drug kingpin, right? But drugs were the center of everything in my life at this point, meth methods specifically. Once I tried for the first time I'm instantly hooked. And I give up, I gave away my job, my home, my car, my savings account, my family, my tethering to God, and 18 months ago from working on Wall Street to living on the streets. And when I say living on the streets, rental, I'm homeless. I've slept in abandoned buildings. I've slept on park benches. I've slept in dope houses. I slept in a lot of cars at first to anything to keep a roof over your right. And then I become a criminal to fund my addiction. And it started off with petty crimes at first and it's shoplifting, breaking into cars breaking the storage units.
• 28:42
  Damon West: Then I start breaking into people's homes. And Randall.
• 28:45
  Damon West: This is a serious crime. These burgers I committed. Burgers are very serious right now. I mean, I've got a family now. I've got a stepdaughter. I've got a wife.
• 28:56
  Damon West: I've got pets. I've got my mom.
• 28:56
  Damon West: I'm building the house from a mom. I can't imagine someone breaking into my house and doing what I did to my victims. Right?
• 29:02
  Damon West: I can't imagine that
• 29:06
  Randall Kaplan: walk walk us just stop everyone's like, walk us through the mentality of the first time you realize this is a step up right shoplifting to cracking open a door or going through a window and entering the house was Were you nervous holy shit like this a whole nother level?
• 29:24
  Damon West: Nervous? Yes.
• 29:24
  Damon West: Because I don't want to run into anybody I know what I'm doing is wrong to random. I'm fully aware of that. But I'm a drug addict.
• 29:32
  Damon West: Drug addicts can justify anything man. That's what addiction that's a disease. You You're justifying your your behaviors justify. I know what I'm doing is wrong. But I want to get high. And I don't have a job. I'm unemployable. I live in, you know, living in and out of dope houses, stuff like that.
• 29:49
  Damon West: And I know that what I'm doing is wrong. But I want to get high. That's what drug addicts do. You do whatever it takes.
• 29:57
  Damon West: You want what you want when you want it. And the first time I broke into a house, yeah.
• 30:04
  Damon West: nervous about it. No one was home. I knew no one was home.
• 30:08
  Damon West: Some of the way I would always make sure nobody was home.
• 30:11
  Randall Kaplan: But how do you know for sure. You know, you hear these stories? Right? You got a questionnaire and someone's in there. That's not they're sleeping in a room there.
• 30:20
  Damon West: All the time. Great question. When I first started doing it, before we started the very first one. So you go up but above the first floor in a condo building right in Dallas and uptown Dallas. They call them the Uptown burglaries. They call me The Uptown burger before they even knew who I was. These uptown burglaries are happening and they didn't just happen in uptown. We broke into places all over the DFW Metroplex on the news. I mean, you got on the news. There's a paper yeah, there's there's about a dozen meth addicts in this ring. Young and old male and female, black and white and everything. Hang in between, because drugs and addiction, don't discriminate, or addiction doesn't care who you are, where you come from. So there's all kinds of different people in this burglary crew.
• 31:00
  Damon West: But when I first start doing this thing, it's not a burglary crew. It's Damon West and I go anything above the first floor of a condo building, right? And you see a bunch of menus and stuff shoved in the door, or you see a bunch of papers and packages in front of the door.
• 31:12
  Damon West: Nobody's home random, there's no right back door, you can go out your back doors to balcony, you know, you've got gravity working against you. When you're above the first floor. Yeah. That's how I knew no one was home when you have a bunch of flyers and news. Newspapers were a dead giveaway. You know, they don't newspapers aren't so much anymore, because we don't see that as much in society. But when you have a week's worth of newspapers, you can kind of date how far back someone's been home. Right? They're not home.
• 31:38
  Damon West: So that's how it started. Then I realized that that wasn't, you know, if I was going to really do this, I needed more information to break into people's houses. I mean, because I ran, I didn't want to run anybody. I knew what I was doing was wrong. The last thing I want to do is run into somebody, they get hurt or I get hurt, you know, right. I'm not I'm not a violent guy. I'm a drug addict.
• 31:55
  Damon West: So
• 31:58
  Randall Kaplan: the first one first one was you steal, broken a post office,
• 32:02
  Damon West: you go first, the first first burglary first burglary, oh, electronics. I mean, that was easy.
• 32:08
  Randall Kaplan: TV hahaha jewelry, walking out of a kind of building with a TV in your hand and putting it into a trunk without someone. Oh,
• 32:15
  Damon West: I mean, you can you can easily do that look like you're moving something right?
• 32:16
  Damon West: Eventually, when the burglaries got going on more sophisticated.
• 32:19
  Damon West: We had a white moving truck, we had guys dressed up in Dicky overalls. I mean, a guy walked around with a clipboard we would take a moving company, you know, and people were getting the gate for holding the security gate for open we get the gate for you know, you got dollies rolling people stuff out. That's when it gets more sophisticated. But when I first do it, you know, you're looking for TVs, laptops, jewelry, stuff like that, you know. So that's how the burglaries first start, you're doing that. And I mean, you can get stuff out of a place if you can get it out of the door, you can get out of the place. But one of the break ins I did when I first started doing this, I broke into a US Post Office and I stole a mailman uniform.
• 32:58
  Damon West: Because no one really knows what the mailman looks like. I mean, some people might, but I mean, in this area of Dallas where I am, I get a mailman uniform, and becomes my key to get into a lot of places. You know, some sometimes I'd wait to the real mailman or to leave the condo building and they're going after him. And they have a male kiosk inside of these condo buildings.
• 33:20
  Damon West: And, you know, on three, three sides of the wall. And the male kiosks are these little slots on the outside, you have your key to one your little box. But if you can get that big door.
• 33:27
  Damon West: Again, we're talking about going through doors. If you can get in that big door inside that room has all these slots that are open that the mailman goes in, does the mail, some of the slots will have mail stacked up. Now one time, some of the slots will have a note this is out of town from this date to this date, hold our mail. And that's how I would go and select who some of the victims would be. I'd make sure no one was ever home. All
• 33:49
  Randall Kaplan: right. So talk to us about the day you're sitting in the living room and wake up with. So there's there's a blast, right, man, it's so it sounds like a bomb.
• 33:59
  Damon West: I can tell you the date is July 30 2008. These burglaries have gone on for three years, right? And this crew that we've got together there's a I got a partner in crime and Dustin. Dustin is my right hand man. He knows everything about the operation.
• 34:12
  Damon West: And Dustin had just been picked up 10 days before the Dallas Police had him in custody. So they got my partner in crime and custody, which means it's only a matter of time before they have me in custody. You knew it was coming. Oh, I'm sitting Yeah.
• 34:24
  Damon West: And I'm sitting on the couch my dope dealers there. His name is Tex. And I'm sitting there smoking no smoking meth with texts. Am I do text drop off the dope get out of here. You gotta go. The cops are causing me The end is near. And just as a passerby back to text that window on my right blows out and shatters. And tumbling across my living room floor is a little canister going in over in and smoking Randall. I've seen this movie, right. I know what's about to go down in the living room. And I think it can get out of there in time I get up and start running. It was too late.
• 34:56
  Damon West: This thing this flashbang grenade blows up in my face.
• 34:59
  Damon West: bright white light, loud, always loud, loud, but my ears are ringing. Bulls me back on the couch loud. bang, boom. I'm back. And when I came to when I can see it here again. I'm on the ground. There's a cops got his boots on my chest, the barrel of a rifle sticking in my socket, his fingers over the trigger. This cop is screaming at me because my ears have been ringing, right? He's screaming Don't move. Don't move. And I'm like, man, don't worry. Don't worry, right. Like I'm looking at the barrel of a gun. Right?
• 35:27
  Randall Kaplan: And what are your Hi by the way?
• 35:29
  Damon West: Hi Skype. But that'll sober you up real quick when a SWAT team comes into your living room. And one of the Dallas SWAT officers screamed out loud. We got him. We got the Uptown burglar. They set it out loud heard it from him. They rejoice and they were happy and it good because I was a bad guy.
• 35:46
  Damon West: They they got a bad guy off the street. But I look back on that event now ran out the door Our SWAT team didn't just arrest me that day. They rescued me that day, they pulled me out of a situation, I clearly was never going to get myself out of right. The angels of my story don't have wings. My angels had assault rifles, shields, they had helmets on. They came through the winter, they busted my door off the hinges, they pulled me out of this world that I was in. They saved my life that day random, but I didn't understand it. I didn't understand that till I was years in prison, and I finally put it together, the SWAT team saved me. And when I talked to audiences, sometimes I talk about the SWAT teams of life that come for us in different ways, right? The SWAT team can come for you through a divorce, through a bankruptcy, something happens to your child, somebody dies, your pet. SWAT teams are always coming forced. But the idea is when we can look at the situation of adversity when the SWAT team comes, what's the opportunity that adversity?
• 36:41
  Damon West: What's life trying to teach me with this adversity I'm in right now. That was what saved my life that day, man. So
• 36:50
  Randall Kaplan: we'll get to the sobriety in a minute, but do the sobriety start when you're in the backseat? coughed, knowing you're not going to get more math? And what was the feeling you had when they put you in the jail cell for the first time?
• 37:03
  Randall Kaplan: You know, you get the headshot, and you're sitting at some point, you remember the exact moment you got in that cell? And you're looking around? What what are you feeling that day?
• 37:11
  Damon West: trapped, trapped?
• 37:11
  Damon West: And how am I gonna get my dope now? That's exactly what I'm thinking about. I'm an addict, right? No, am I am I just stone cold sober? Because I just got arrested? No, I'm sitting here putting out how am I gonna get dope right into Dallas County Jail. I'm talking to some of these cartel guys who are coming off the street from his Dallas.
• 37:29
  Damon West: He's Hispanic guys. And I'm trying to get him to bring dope in. And oh, yeah, we'll get some in. But nobody could ever get any dope in the Dallas County Jail. I'm thinking for this stuff. Right. And I'm coming down. This party that I've been on for three years is over now and under shaking at this point, because you hear all this so well. I'm not I'm not going through shakes. What I am doing is I'm sleeping a lot more. And eating a lot more. Right. I put on 65 pounds when I was in Dallas County, Joe. Yeah, between when when I got arrested when I went to prison, I put on 65 pounds. I'm sitting around eating honey buns and ramen noodle soups. I'm depressed. I'm locked up. I couldn't get a dope in I'm going to trial for a first degree felony for organized crime, potential life sentence hanging over me. All my world fell apart. And one of the things criminals are stupid.
• 38:13
  Damon West: We're stupid people when we're criminals, right? I'm on the phone and that jail because I'm trying to get out right? The dope is talking to me get out of here. That's how you're gonna get high. So I'm calling people from the dope world and owe me money. My Bond was fired when they first sent my bomb. When I got there. It was a quarter of a million. And oh my god, I gotta get 20 I got 10% of that. Right?
• 38:34
  Damon West: I can get 25,000 I can hold a telethon on this phone. So I start calling people are from the dope world that owe me money. I'm like, Man, you owe me for this job. Bring that money down here. And I'm in jail. Man.
• 38:42
  Damon West: These guys aren't gonna do that.
• 38:45
  Damon West: Yeah, well, you'll see a little bit but what was happening is the police are listening these calls they tell you before you get on the phone. It's being recorded. The cops are going and picking up every single person I'm calling right? The biggest witness against me and my trial was me. And I didn't take the stand. They played back all these recordings. And I sound like a mob boss. Right? They're trying to they call me the Al Capone of Dallas at my trial, the top there Tony Soprano of Dallas, right? Because on this phone, I sound like one of those guys. I'm like, Man, you owe me bring me my money. I want my money right now. You know, stuff like that. They're here on the phones. But I'm just a dope addict, man. I'm a junkie. I didn't have anything in my name.
• 39:19
  Damon West: When the cops came and got me that day. There was no money to be found. There was no, there was a bunch of stolen goods at another address. We call it the safe house. It was about $2 million worth of stolen stuff was there. Everything from from wheels to to handbags to electronics, you get so messed up on this dope. You can't even move the stuff you've got. And one of the things that happened to Randall, is you become addicted to the burglaries you know, you become addicted to the the process of getting ready to break into a place you know, you get the rush from it. And you're an addict. Now you're breaking into places you're not even moving your stuff fast enough. I got dope guys coming in getting stuff. But as long as I have enough in my pocket to keep me high, I'm not trying to move the rest of the stuff. So when the cops get me, there's another address that has all stuff.
• 40:10
  Damon West: There's nothing at my house. But now I'm in Dallas County jail with a quarter million dollar bond. I'm making these phone calls, and they're listening to him. And then one night in Dallas County Jail within the first month I'm in there. I get hit with like 15 indictments in one night. 15 indictments and every indictment has a bond amount attached to it. A bond goes from a quarter of a million dollars to 1.4 million overnight. Because you're afraid of my bond out right. I'm having these calls going on. So my bond is $1.4 million dollars. To give you some context for this.
• 40:41
  Damon West: There's 9000 People in Dallas County Jail. This is one of the biggest jails in America.
• 40:46
  Damon West: 9000 9000 people in Dallas County. This is one little County and not little County.
• 40:49
  Damon West: It's a big County in Texas, they'll say Whether
• 40:52
  Randall Kaplan: that's a half of basketball stadium or a hockey stadium in one building, that's crazy. Yeah.
• 40:58
  Damon West: 9000 County Jail, not Dallas County Jail. 9000 inmates, no one else, not murderers, child molesters, rapist had a bond of 1.4 million I had the highest bond and Dallas County Jail. And my, my crimes are property crimes.
• 41:12
  Damon West: Randel. No one's ever home, no one got hurt, no weapons were used. And we didn't hurt anybody physically right. But we stole this one I'm going to tell you all go. The seriousness of the burglaries that I understood later on, is when I broke into people's homes, I didn't just steal their property. I stole their sense of security. I can't get that back to him, Randall. I can't fix it for him, I can't change what I did. I can't even apologize to my victims. In the state of Texas, they've got a law that says it's a felony to apologize to the victim or to your crimes, they will send you back to prison if you ever tried to make an apology to any of the victims of your crimes, because they
• 41:49
  Randall Kaplan: don't want you having contact with that or contact with the victim and re make them relive what happened to that to them at that moment.
• 41:55
  Randall Kaplan: And that's why the laws there and scare him that you're gonna come after them.
• 42:01
  Damon West: I understand why the walls there. I'm not a violent guy.
• 42:04
  Randall Kaplan: I think the laws designed because I think think
• 42:07
  Damon West: of a victim of a rape. Yep. Right? You think of the victim of a rape really wants the rapist to get out of prison say Hey, want to come back and tell you how sorry I am for doing it. So Texas has a law there for a reason. And I've got to obey the law, I'll never apologize to a victim of a crimes, I can't do it. In recovery, like your friends in recovery. The eighth step of the 12 steps as you make a list of all the people you harm, you become willing to make the amends. Now the nine step nine step was where the rubber meets the road and program recovery.
• 42:34
  Damon West: That's when you go out and make amends to all these people you've harmed. But they have a little caveat in there, except when to do so would cause you or that other person harm. So I can't make an going back to prison causing me harm, right.
• 42:46
  Damon West: So instead of making apologies where you can't make them, you do what's called a living amends. A living amends means you go out and do good deeds, you expect nothing in return.
• 42:55
  Damon West: And that's how you clean your slate for the apology. You can't make him live. Go
• 43:01
  Randall Kaplan: back to the moment that you're in jail. What did your parents say to you when they came to visit you for the first time? And did you cry having to explain what you did your parents? First
• 43:11
  Damon West: of all, the phone call that I made to my parents?
• 43:15
  Damon West: You know, my dad is my dad's in tears. I've never heard my dad cry. I've never seen him cry.
• 43:19
  Damon West: But it was the first time for that for me. And he's like, how did we go wrong? You know, we thought we raised you right? All these things a parent would say, but mom takes the phone from my dad. She gets on the phone.
• 43:30
  Damon West: She's like, Daymond I've never seen your data like this before.
• 43:32
  Damon West: But we need to have a serious conversation we need to talk.
• 43:34
  Damon West: She said you need to understand that we love you unconditionally. She said unconditional love. There's nothing you could do to make us not love you a phone call not in person. Just a phone call. Yeah, Mister phone call. There's an in person visit I'll tell you about in a second too. But she said there's nothing you can do to make us not love you. She said that was the deal we made with God when he loans you to us. She said Do you understand that what I'm saying? And I was like, Yeah, Mom, I got it. And she said Good. Because we just gave you back to God. She said there's nothing we can do for you anymore. Damon, you're, you're now in Dallas County Jail. You're now a captive audience to God, you better start listening to him. And so these phone calls that I have my parents, you know, I'm still talking about how medicine they got the wrong guy. I'm an addict man I'll delusional addicts have delusional thinking. And we we lie, we cheat. We manipulate we steal. But all that's going to come to an end on May 18 2009.
• 44:28
  Damon West: Now random, I got arrested on July 30 2008 10 months later, I'm in a courtroom for a first degree felony organized crime Rico case, right? In 10 months, they got me into court. That's called the rocket docket. That means they want you in a courtroom. They want to make an example out of you. They got me to trial fast. That's rocket fast, right? The trial lasted for six days for six days, the jury heard this overwhelming evidence of my guilt overwhelming. I'm guilty of everything ran I did everything.
• 44:55
  Damon West: They said it's an organized crime. So in a RICO case, this is how it works. The guy at the top that's a targeted prosecutor. And to get the guy at the top, you can take all the crimes that people blow that guy committed, and he stands trial for all the crimes of the whole group. So now I'm at trial for crimes I committed in crimes and everybody else committed.
• 45:12
  Damon West: There's some crimes at the trial that I wouldn't even it on. I didn't know about fact, I realized I got cut out of some of this stuff once I got to my trial, right. But at the end of that trial, the jury heard so much overwhelming evidence. They went to deliberate for 10 minutes. 10 minutes. I don't know how much law and order you watch. But if a jury has gone for 10 minutes, it means they smoked you. They bring the back of the courtroom and the judge reads the sentence out loud with a grin on his face. He said Daymond Joseph West You are hereby sentenced to 65 years and the Texas Department criminal justice Randall 65 years in Texas is a life sentence. They stopped calculating time in prison some Texas at 60 years 60 is life. Anything you hear above that just window dressing for juries? 65 years as a license is the jury gave me life. First felony conviction ever met.
• 46:06
  Damon West: Number one. That's it. Life in prison.
• 46:10
  Randall Kaplan: Parents coming to visit you parents
• 46:12
  Damon West: in the courtroom.
• 46:12
  Damon West: And mean my mother gasped when the judge would listen so loud.
• 46:15
  Damon West: Immediately the sheriff is only the bailiff is only there handcuff me to get me out. It happens fast. Like you seen the movies, right? They're handcuffed me getting out of the courtroom a lot because my mom on the way out I'm in I'm frightened. I'm like, Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. They whisked me out of there. They put in this little side room. There's a bulletproof glass. It's the area, the area back there where you talk to your attorneys away from the courtroom. They bring my parents in a few minutes later, they're gonna give my parents one last visit before go to prison. They feel sorry for my parents cuz I just got life.
• 46:44
  Damon West: My dad, he can't even talk. He's in stunned disbelief that his son who wants out all this promise in life just received a license to prison. So my mom steps up and she does all the talking that day. And she tells me she's like baby debts in life demand to be paid. And you just got hit with one hell of a bill from the state of Texas. But you did everything you said you did.
• 47:05
  Damon West: So you have to go and pay that debt to society. She said you owe Texas that debt. But now you're your father and I did too. She said Damon, we gave you all the opportunities, love and support to be anything in life, anything at all. And that's the path you just chose. She's not gonna work. Raise you in Port Arthur, Texas, a giant melting pot of the city. We gave you a great moral compass. But you chose to not use it. So here's the dead you're going to pay to us. When you go to prison, you will not get one of these white hate groups, one of these Aryan Brotherhood type of gangs because you're scared to death to the minority. They're not going to work. You were never raised to be a racist. You're not going to start now. She said you will not get any tattoos while you're inside their prison. Randall. I got no ain't man. Not these guys in prison.
• 47:47
  Damon West: Want to tattoo every inch your body man. These guys hit me up constantly in prison for 10.
• 47:49
  Damon West: They were like man, Wes, let me put a tattoo on you, man. I tell them the same thing every time and I can't do it. And my mom said no. Your mom Oh, my mommy.
• 47:59
  Damon West: But it's the best. The good thing is here's a little known fact right? Because now you're talking to the criminal justice professor. I'm putting my professor hat on now. in American prisons, the busiest visitation day of the year. And American prisons every year is Mother's Day. Mother's Day, man.
• 48:16
  Damon West: The Lions out the gate with mothers waiting to see their sons and their daughters in prison. Fathers is just another Saturday in prison and a Saturday and Sunday in prison.
• 48:23
  Damon West: Not everybody has a dad but everybody's got a mom right? So the guys will let me make it in prison. But my mom told me that day. She said no gangs, no tattoos. You come back is the man that we raised. Our don't come back at all. Dude, I'm floored. I'm stunned. I don't know how to do this. And she finishes the conversation. She said Do you understand the debtor? But to me to us? Yeah, I got it. But Rando. I don't know what I just promised man. I've never been to prison for I don't know if it's been in prison before.
• 48:51
  Randall Kaplan: Did you apologize to your parents when they came to visit you in the cell the first time and we're just bawling and say I can't believe I did this while I'm so sorry. The Apology
• 48:59
  Damon West: started. You the apology started after the trial, you know,
• 49:04
  Randall Kaplan: but not before when they came to visit, you know, in county jail.
• 49:08
  Damon West: My dad came to visit me one time and county jail and the 10 months my mom never came to visit me in county jail.
• 49:14
  Damon West: County Jail is not a real visitation friendly type atmosphere. I mean, my brother older brother came to visit me one time. A friend of mine from high school named Danielle Daga.
• 49:23
  Damon West: Do and Teresa and when they came to visit me one time but didn't have a lot of visitors to county jail. lonely, lonely, institutional livings very lonely. Now, when I got to prison, that would be a whole different story. And we'll get into that I was in prison right by the town I grew up in so my parents came to visit me in prison over 150 times. And no one gets me any visits Randall, the wardens, the majors, the chaplain people, they're like, man, I've never seen somebody get this many visits. And I never felt like I had both feet in prison the whole time. I was there. I had one foot in one foot out because I had this family there outside that loved me. It wouldn't let go of me.
• 49:57
  Damon West: But yeah, so they sent me back to my pod that day, right after the right after I get my sentence had the conversation my parents. They sent me back to my pod, Dallas County Jail. I got about two months. I know before the prison bus is about to pick me up. And I'm frantically asking everybody in county jail has been to prison before how am I gonna survive? What am I going to do? And every guy I'm talking to man, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they're all saying the same exact thing universally.
• 50:24
  Damon West: You got to get to a gang. You won't survive without a gang.
• 50:27
  Damon West: They said the gang is your family now. But there was this one guy Randall. It was so different. This older black man named Muhammad and Muhammad in my book, the change agent. I call him Mr. Jazz.
• 50:38
  Randall Kaplan: Let's timeout because I want to take steps before we get to Mr. Jackson.
• 50:41
  Randall Kaplan: Okay, so we see on TV, and we all know stories you go to prison and everyone's worried about I'm getting raped. And you don't have a choice to go into gang, sometimes you know, someone's going to make you. And I hate to say this word and I, not sure I can say on the podcast, I have friends that have gone to prison. And this is what they're going to quote, I'm not going to use their word. So they're not my word, but they said, they're gonna make you their bitch. And so are you worried about getting in there and getting raped? And then tell our viewers what actually happened? How you prevented that from getting happened your first or second day when you were in there? Well,
• 51:25
  Damon West: so in Texas prison they had I was saying, and I'll just say the words the people that told it to me, you got three choices when you get to prison, especially if you get a license. Now, when you get a life sentence in Texas, you don't live with the rest of the general population that supermax prison you live in lifers, right? I live on a building called Seven building that's got 432 Men, every man's got life, most of these guys are never going home again. This is the most dangerous world you're gonna live in. Right? This is, this is the, this the edge of the earth. It's over after this, like this is the most dangerous, because there's no hope. You know what, there's a void of hope, negativity, evil darkness, that's what fills a void. But they have a same when you get in. You got three choices. You can fight, you can fuck. Or you can bust to 50 Buster. 50 is $50 a commissary you can get you can pay for protection. So you could fight. You can get raped. Or you could pay for protection, one time fee $50. No, every month every time you go to the every time you go to comps every two weeks. Yeah, this is a $50 deal forever. Every two weeks every time you go every time there's a commerce commentary store in prison. That was what they said you could fight fucker Buster 50. And so those are your three choices. You got to pick one of those paths. I chose to fight.
• 52:39
  Damon West: Now, to get into the story. The guy in county jail is going to give me this give me the game.
• 52:47
  Damon West: Do you want me to give them the game before I get into the story in prison?
• 52:50
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, you you tell us how you want to tell. So this old black
• 52:54
  Damon West: guy in county jail in my book, the change agent. I call him Mr. Jackson. But the name that I knew him by was Muhammad. I changed everybody's name for that book. We're going to talk about Muhammad because I've found Muhammad in real life now. So Muhammad's is older black guy in Dallas County Jail, career criminal. He's been in and out of prison his entire life. But he's really a positive guy, right? He's got a smile on his face everywhere. And every morning. He comes check on me.
• 53:17
  Damon West: He's picking me up. He's like a positive persons out there. So one morning, he comes up, he's getting ready to bond out of Dallas County Jail, the prison buses getting ready to come pick me up take me to serve my wife since he's like West, I've been watching how you're dealing with these knuckleheads these dummies talking about you got to get to a gang. He said don't miss these fools. He said you want to keep the promise you made your mom, your dad. Let me tell you what prisons really gonna be like. So he told me so the first thing to understand about prison. Prison is all about race. He said race runs the whole institutions out of prison. He said it's, that's the way the inmates want it, by the way. Now, Randall, the inmates run the asylum in there.
• 53:52
  Damon West: He's telling me the inmates want it like that. When you get into a supermax prison, you're expected to break off your own racial group and stay with that group. He says what I'm telling you is when you walk in the door, the white gang because the first dibs on you, Aryan Brotherhood Aryan circle, white knights, the woods, fight all the white gangs, you survived that, now you're fighting the black gangs, and the white gangs will actually send white gangs after you to beat you up. So you can they can push you in the right direction, right? But he said, if you can survive all that, and you can survive all that you're earning the right to walk along. He told me you don't have to win all your fights. But you do have to fight all your fights a big lesson in life. He said don't get caught up in wins and losses. No one in there cares about wins or losses. All they want to see is if you're gonna defend yourself. When he's telling me this back in 2009, in Dallas County Jail, he could see the fear in my eyes and he's like, Look, I'm not getting through to you. Let me break it down for you a different way. He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. And he said anything we put in the boy in water is gonna be changed by the heat the pressure. He said, I'm gonna put three things in this pot of boiling water, and watch how they change, a carrot, an egg, and a coffee bean. So here's where I first heard the story.
• 54:57
  Damon West: The coffee bean is 2009 and Dallas County Jail. And he walks me through and he's telling me that a carrot goes in horror but become soft in boiling water.
• 55:05
  Damon West: The egg goes in with a soft liquid inside the heart, right?
• 55:08
  Damon West: But in the boiling water of life, your heart can become hardened like a hard boiled egg.
• 55:11
  Damon West: But he said the coffee bean, the smallest of the three things changes the pot of boiling water into a pot of coffee. In fact, he said the coffee bean can do his job to the water gets the highest so the pressure is the as the hottest right? So he told me if you want to survive this experience and come back to some of your parents recognize you, you got to be like a coffee bean. Fight the last words you ever told me were be a coffee bean right before he leaves Dallas County Jail for the last time I've ever seen. So I get to prison. It's a baptism of fire.
• 55:38
  Damon West: First day I'm in first day I walk in within 20 minutes I'm fighting this big dude from the Aryan Brotherhood. Huge muscled up dude bone after you. He came after me. But he told me Muhammad told me he said this is what's going to have In your first day, the first guy is gonna approach you're gonna be a white guy, because you're white.
• 55:56
  Damon West: He said, the first guy is not a threat. He's an information guy, there's a scout. Gonna ask you one relevant question, what gang are you gonna be a part of? He said, Get him out of your face as fast as you can and get ready, get your head on the swivel because the second guy coming up to you, he's not coming to talk to you. He's coming to hurt. He's the Enforcer, right? He said, When the second guy gets in range, put your fist in his mouth. He said, just reach up hit him as hard as you can get your jump on your first fight. So I walk into prison that first day in 2009, right? I got a mattress under one arm a couple bags of property. This guy comes up with a ball hit a white dude comes up first. Just like he said he would man gets in my face. He says a white boy with fame where you ride with. They call gangs, families. I was like, man, get out of my face. We'll do dumb ride with God. Please just leave me alone and ride with God. He laughed at me. He said God isn't here. Why? Boy, you don't get it. We kicked him out of here a long time ago. It's a matter of fact we are God. You're gonna get ready to meet God right now too, because we're coming to get you and he runs up the stairwell on the right side. And man, I'm standing there I'm ready to pee in my pants. But I don't have time for that because the biggest like I said the biggest cornfed white dude I've ever seen in my life. Big Aryan Brotherhood guy. He points from the third run he comes running down the stairwell. I get a good look at this dude head on Randall. Huge muscled up dude bald head with a SWAT scholar on top of his scope. coming at me roar on me, man. And when he gets within range, I reach up and I hit him as hard as I can I get the first weekend. And 20 seconds my first fight in prison is over. He beats me from one side of the dayroom to the other man, I can't even get up off the ground eating back. He keeps hitting me. I'm banged up inside of 20 minutes. I'm in my first fight I lost. But remember, you don't have to win your fights.
• 57:28
  Damon West: You got to fight your fights. So I picked myself up I go to myself.
• 57:32
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, those guards are around you trying to help you at this point.
• 57:34
  Damon West: Oh man, the guards.
• 57:34
  Damon West: Man for the guards for the most part. They're like most part, they're like, man, you want to fight just wait till we leave the cell. Don't do it in front of us. You know, that's when everybody fights in prison and fight is just a part a part of prison especially with the lifers, right. So I gathered my stuff up, I go into my cell. I mean, Carlos first cellmate, you know, and then the fighting really began. For the next two weeks, I fought the white gangs after that every day. Damn, every day I probably got three dozen fights in two months, and I lost 75% of those fights Randall. I got my butt kicked over because Carlos show me how to make a mouthpiece. You take a bunch of wet toilet paper and you put it in your mouth, you form it to your teeth and you set it out overnight on a little desk and sell it in the morning.
• 58:15
  Damon West: It's like a piece of woods Harden, you write that paper gets hardened. And that mouthpiece is good for one fight. You just stick it in your pocket. And if someone challenged you to a fight, you slip your mouthpiece in. You go fight it's mulisch when you get done fighting, but that little toilet paper that hardened up like wood, that your mouthpiece so Carla's taught me how to make a mouthpiece. But I'm fighting constantly in the first two months, six weeks in, I'm ready to give up. I can't take it anymore. I fight the black gangs. So at this point, just like Muhammad said I would. It's a Monday morning I get up. And the only thing I haven't used to earn respect inside this prison is my athletic ability. I remember, God wants me to be a tremendous athlete in life. I'm gonna do one quarterback guy, right? And I'm in. I mean, you see the guy in front of you right now and I'm an athlete.
• 59:01
  Damon West: But I haven't used my athletic ability because the rec yard where you play sports. It's the most intimidating place I've ever seen. Because it was the most segregated place I've ever seen. Every sport on the rec yard of the licensed building was segregated by the color of your skin. Let me walk you through the rec yard. I'm gonna walk everybody through the rec yard. You go out there, they got a sand volleyball court. That was for the whites and Hispanics, handball, those big handball walls. All the races can play handball, but if you want to play doubles in the game, a doubles and handball with somebody. Your partner has to be same skin colors, you couldn't mix the races. The weight sag, just like you see in prison movies, man, everybody wants to push out iron in Britain, and all the races can lift weights. But if you want someone to spot your workout with your partner, your spotter has to be the same skin coach, you cannot mix the races that you couldn't even sit down at a table Randall in a meal on the chow hall with people of a different race races everything.
• 59:52
  Damon West: So that that day six weeks in, I go out to the rec yard. I face my fears. I'm gonna go out and play sports that morning. But I pass up all those other sports I just told you about. And I go to the basketball court who you think runs a basketball court?
• 1:00:06
  Damon West: The blacks, the brothers, they run it, and no white boys look like me are allowed that basketball court. But do you know why? I go and play basketball that Monday morning?
• 1:00:15
  Damon West: Because I know that in America, sports is the great united in this country. Randall. Sports is the one thing that brings people together like nothing else game this country. I mean, think about it for a second. Before there was Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1:00:28
  Damon West: There was Jackie Robinson.
• 1:00:28
  Damon West: Before you integrated lunch counters in the south where I grew up. You integrated locker rooms. I watched it with my dad, a dad was the first sports writer to put black athletes in the front page sports page. I knew sports would do it for me and I went out there and played basketball and that's how our family earned my respect in prison. And I thought the fighting was over man because the blacks told me after a week of playing basketball with him, you're done fight with us. If there was one more fight to go, man, but at
• 1:00:54
  Randall Kaplan: that point, you're the only white guy out on the basketball court. No, no other white guy is no
• 1:00:58
  Damon West: and no, there's I mean, you have to be invited to play with those guys. Right? But um, I belong now. You know, I'm out there I'm playing with them.
• 1:01:05
  Damon West: In fact, after playing with them for a week, and it was most brutal basketball, for replayed to was a five on five was not on one, right. I got a blackouts and busted lips and so forth. I learned two things about adversity in their backyard, though. I'm gonna tell you what I learn. Adversity is never as bad as you think it's going to be. And you are always capable of way more than you think you are. Because sometimes in life, we allow overthinking to get in the way of overcoming. That's what adversity does to people.
• 1:01:32
  Damon West: We overthink our situation sometimes. But I got to a place in life where there's just no more room to think I just had to do you know, my back is against the wall. I think I'm gonna die in this place. So two months is over the violence is finally over the threat to my physical safety is gone. I think. Because these guys come and get me everyday to play basketball with them now, they're banging on myself. Oh, come on. Let's just go through some hoops. I belong, right. So a few weeks after that basketball game. I'm coming off the rec yard. I'm gonna get ready to take a shower. my cellmate Carlos. He man he's agitated I can tell he makes a beeline for me. He pulls me under the stairs under stairs.
• 1:02:06
  Damon West: You know where you go to talk and there's no cameras there on the stair. They can't see what you're talking about. He said when you go to the shower today, black Jack's gonna be there to rape you. Now blackjack is the biggest rapist in prison man.
• 1:02:17
  Damon West: This guy's about six four to 60 Big black guy loves to rape white as well as called blackjack. Right? Loves to rape white guys with a knife. And he's HIV positive. This guy's death in several ways. He said blackjack to me in the shower for you today when you go in there is gonna come rape you today. He told me blackjack has been watching me out there being the only white guy on the basketball court. He said I told you. I told you don't go out there and play basketball. Let's go. You don't belong in that basketball court. Now Black Jackson this pod right now. Now blackjack don't even live in our section. He's come all the way over here to write me that day.
• 1:02:49
  Damon West: So I told Carlos I said, Man, look. I'm not gonna take a shower today. I'm not going to shower. He said you have to go to the shower. He said a blackjack comes in here today doesn't rape you he's gonna rape someone else. Now that's on YouTube. Now you got two problems to deal with. He said you're on the track and the train is coming and what are you prepared to do? And I'm like, Man, Carlos. He's got a knife.
• 1:03:07
  Damon West: And I've never fought with a knife. I don't have a knife to fighting with. Man. Carlos pulls a knife out of his pants about this. I don't know what to do taught it to you like five, four. You got a knife this long in his bands. And he puts in my hand. Now, a knife in prison.
• 1:03:21
  Damon West: It's just like you see in the movies, man. It's a piece of steel. It's been sharpened razor Razors Edge, got duct tape around the handle, puts it in my hand. I'm holding this blade. I give it back to him. I'm like, Man, Carlos. I've never fought with a knife before. I don't know how to fight with a knife.
• 1:03:33
  Damon West: This guy's who have it cut me up. There's got to be another weapon and the way he said there is another weapon. He said meet me back in the cell. So I'll go up. We will live in the third tier. There's three different tiers in there over the third tier 45. So go up there and wait for him to come back and he comes back a few minutes later.
• 1:03:46
  Damon West: He's got some tools in his hands. Now in Texas prisons.
• 1:03:49
  Damon West: There's no air conditioning random. Know it's hot. In Texas is a hot state. I live in the Gulf Coast. In prison, man. It's humidities about 100% Most of the summertime, right. Instead of air conditioning, you have these little bitty fans that are supposed to keep you cool. So he takes my fan apart. He's got some tools in his hands. He cuts the fan motor out of that fan.
• 1:04:09
  Damon West: It's a five pound motor. Those that are my my shower bag, and you start swinging the shower back. He said this is your weapon today. It's like a medieval weapon like a ball chain flail. He said do everything I tell you to do he said go into the shower. It's a one man shower, go in there and they gotta change area off to the right side. Go to the back, turn the shower water on get it real high and steamy in there.
• 1:04:28
  Damon West: He said given the change area and wait for him to come through the door. And when he comes to the door hit him in the head with this fan motor man. He said the first hit won't won't kill.
• 1:04:37
  Damon West: It's gonna stun him. He said but when you get him started to get him on the ground, hit his head.
• 1:04:42
  Damon West: He said do not stop swinging this night. Do you see his brains come out of school? He said you gotta kill this guy.
• 1:04:47
  Damon West: Are you going to kill him? See, I'm gonna kill him. He said West one of two things about to happen to you. He said you're either gonna kill this dude. And you're never gonna leave prison alive because you need another license. They're never gonna let you go. Or he's going to do something to you that you wish you were dead. But either way you're never leaving prison or after you understand that day. I was like, yeah, so it gave me the fan motor. I go to man scared to death ran on my heart stopping. I go there. I put the shower water on getting the change here and wait. I don't even know how long it was man. A minute and a half, two minutes.
• 1:05:15
  Damon West: Maybe they had these little half saloon doors back then on the showers. And I remember he pulls these doors opens. You have a knife in his hand. He pulls his doors open. He's got this big grin on his face kind of like a dude's about to get laid. But two o'clock in the morning, right? And that grin broke it open for me, man. I saw the green and I saw red and bam I hit this dude as hard as I can.
• 1:05:37
  Damon West: Man. I swing this fan motor as hard as I can. He raises up the last second. I hit him in the chest, shoots him out of the shower right now he's on the ground. The knife is on the ground next to him. And I am bashing with this fan motor and I'm going I'm trying to get to his head but he got his head covered up. I made it The Iron ribs crack on to this thing to his gang brothers flop. He's a Mandingo warrior to his game brothers are flying up the stairs because everybody see in the day room that this thing went south quit for blackjack.
• 1:06:02
  Damon West: I'm gonna kill him. These two guys run up there guys that we basketball with guys I've been playing basketball with for two weeks, let me into their world are now in front of my face.
• 1:06:11
  Damon West: You're like West, don't hit him again. Don't don't swing that back. Don't do anything. And I'm like, man, he tried to rape me.
• 1:06:19
  Damon West: They're like, he's a rapist.
• 1:06:19
  Damon West: That's what he does. But he's our brother. You can't kill our brother. You can't hurt our brother like that. If you lay another hand on this, dude, we're gonna throw you off the rubbers gonna kill you today.
• 1:06:28
  Damon West: They said, man, get your bag, get out of here and go. So I grabbed my bag, go to my cell, throw the bag on the ground ran I get in the ground in my cell and I just start crying like a baby balled in the ground.
• 1:06:36
  Damon West: Almost killed this guy, man and I wanted to kill him, right?
• 1:06:39
  Damon West: That takes for blood but I'm in there. And I start crying like a baby and adrenaline burns off.
• 1:06:44
  Damon West: And I pass out. I'm laying in my bunk. I'm waiting. I mean, I'm laying in the sail on the ground by the toilet. And I hear the cell doors rolling. And my I'm so hungry ever get that hunger feeling where you don't like feel the back of your stomach, right? I'm hungry, man. All that room burned off. And I'm like, Man, I'm looking at the clock.
• 1:07:01
  Damon West: And I'm like, okay, cool. I can make it the last shell. Man that clock was for the next day. I'd been out for 12 hours man passed out cold. And oh my gosh, it really happened and what a nightmare. I look back the bag is over there. It's got blood all over it, man. This guy's HIV positive. I started looking around see if I'm bleeding. It's not my blood is his blood and my great good. Like I walk up the silk door. Now I don't know what's going to happen ran. I don't know someone's going to stick a piece of steel in me and stab me or what? But when I walked out that sale door, it was a whole different prison for Damon West because everybody in prison just saw that I spoke the only language everybody speaks in prison. That's violence.
• 1:07:38
  Damon West: Violence is the only universal language of prison. Either someone speaks violent to you, or you speak to them, but you become fluent in the language of violence. And everybody saw that I could take another man's life I had you I didn't kill him. I banged him up really bad. But they saw that I would I was willing to do it. Never had to fight again.