I
attended your talk to my school Dover Grammar School for Girls earlier this
evening. I just wanted to let you know that I find it remarkable at how you can
tell others about things you regret earlier in your life, and the decisions you
wish you had never made.
It
must be hard for you to tell everyone about the hard situations you went
through when in prison. Also, I find your commitment to letting the world know
how awful these prisons are, and trying your best to get it recognised uplifting.
I
was the only year 10 student in the hall this evening, and the reason I decided
to attend was because last year you had talked about this with our year when in
year 9. When you told it the first time, I found it amazing. It was full of
information, and really made people realise the conditions at which you could
be put through as a consequence of taking illegal drugs. I thought it would be
good for me to come again since I loved it last time. You don't hold back on
the truth which is great because then we find out the truth about what it is
really like.
I
thought it was wonderful this time that you showed the video of your mother
talking about how she felt when all this was happening to you.
I think this
added a lot to the story as it made me and the people around me think about how
our parents would feel if we put them through a similar situation.
That's
all I really wanted to say. I wish you
all the best in your future. I am so happy that you got out of prison just to
tell us your story because it is full of emotions and you are truly an
inspiration in my eyes. Thank you.
A big thank you to all of the people who showed up at The Boileroom in Guildford on Sunday for the Party Timelaunch. A combination of karate, BodyCombat and yoga people made the atmosphere spot on. The Banged-Up Abroad episode gripped the audience, and was followed by almost an hour of questions and answers.
Setting up with Mike Hotwheelz and Stuart
Mum
Mum and Callie
With my sister and partner Callie
With Judy from the BodyCombat front row
Mike Hotwheelz
With Martin, a karate black belt
With Mark a teacher from Aldershot
With Seb from Poland
With Josephine
With Sam from the School of Hard knocks
Watching Raving Arizona
With Fotini (far left) from Greece
With BodyCombat instructor Steve from Zimbabwe
With Nige, who just got his karate black belt
With fellow karate friends
With Jon, a former BodyCombat instructor
With Claire and Jill, my senior proof readers
With Tony, my BodyCombat instructor and his daughter
This Sunday In Guildford, an arts venue called The Boileroom is showing my Banged-Up Abroad episode Raving Arizona four months before it goes on national UK TV. It's a free event and all ages, including students, are welcome. Doors open at 7pm. The episode is on at 8pm, followed by Q&A.
The Boileroom,
13 Stoke Fields
Guildford, Surrey
GU1 4LS
T-Bone- Radiating power and strength, this deeply-spiritual massively-built African-American towers over most inmates. He is a prison gladiatorwith more stab wounds than Julius Caesar.A good man to have on your side.
Peace my Brother,
This letter is being written by someone else. I’m dictating it to him. Everything is fine besides the fact that I miss my beautiful wife and you my good friend. I didn’t receive your latest postcard because it had an airmail sticker on it, so please send me some good tidings from across the pond, my brother. How is your niece? I’m praying for her right now.
I’ve often dreamt of speaking in front of students there because it’s more than just a serious responsibility, it’s an honor, and a privilege that not many people have. I can’t wait to be standing with you, brother, and doing what I believe I’ve been called to do.
Please say Hi to all of the students in the T-Bone Appreciation Society. Give them my respect and heartfelt thanks for their prayers and hopes for me. Please share with them that I will be there, and I will speak nothing but the truth about my life and how drugs and a life on the street have caused nothing but pain and destruction, and to say the least, heartache.
The next time, I will help people who are on drugs instead of allowing temptation to control me or problems that we use to make excuses to go to do wrong. It’s the same way all around the world, so what we need to do is help people by telling them the truth about drugs and drug addiction. Man, do I have some things to say, and I will with you and as many people I can in my life.
I love you brother, so please stay strong and positive. Give my respects to your lovely family.
Each one. Teach one.
Steel embrace.
Strength and Honor
I now have two books featuring T-Bone, the hard-hitting Prison Timeand a self-help book, Lessons from a Drug Lord– both include T-Bone fight stories Shaun Attwood
Hi Shaun, my name is Janet. I watched your episode of Locked-Up Abroadand I felt compelled to write you. I have had personal experience with Maricopa's prison system as my ex-husband, David, has been working there for 10 years. He worked there while we were married, and I was integrated into the social aspect of the lives of Detention Officers. I have horrific tails of human rights violations that have haunted me for years. There are thousands upon thousands who have suffered under Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s reign.
I lived in Phoenix for several years. David and I had a little apartment near Durango where he worked the morning shift. I was integrated into a world of severe meatheads and idiot guards. It was always amazing to me the kinds of people that were passed through the academy process. But the guards referred to each other as family, and so these people became my relatives.
My husband was a particularly violent man. He was only 22, but already a monster. I feared him with all my being, but oddly still loved him and wanted only to please him and earn his approval. I guess that's the typical behavior of a battered wife. But the further he worked for Joe Arpaio, the further he continued to change.
After having worked there for maybe 6 months or so, he came home one day with blood on his boots. Like most guards, he was very particular and protective over that "glassy mirror shine" created when a person spent the time and energy into perfecting their appearance, which they believed maximized their authority over the inmates. I was in shock! When he told me what happened, he focused on the fact that there was now blood on his boots, instead of focusing on the fact of how it got there in the first place.
There was an inmate at this facility that the guards all called "Plums." It was unusual for any kind of playful nickname to be used on any inmate, and so I mistakenly took it to mean that they were friendly with him. My husband would come home all the time laughing about something Plums had said or done. I took it to mean that he though Plums was a funny fun guy... I didn’t realize till later that he was just mocking him.
Apparently that day while David was doing his rounds, Plums thought it would be funny to pull a prank on him. Plums had failed to realize that there are no real friends between inmate and officer, and he was about to cross the line. Plums hid in his cell under his bunk. As my ex-husband entered the cell to take a quick look around, Plums sprang out and grabbed his leg. My husband had told me what happened next was just a natural reaction, but I don’t believe kicking an inmate in the face several times is any kind of natural reaction. David was a strong man. He was small, but strong. He kicked Plums several times in the face while he lay on the ground. When I asked David how he could ever do that to a friend, he laughed and told me "He's not a friend! He's an inmate!!... AND he got blood on my boots!" The rest of the night he focused on erasing the blood off his boot, while Plums lay in the hospital with a broken nose.
It was the start of my realization on how horrible the jails were, and how evil Joe Arpaio really is.
As I watched your story last night I cried. I have repressed that life for a long time now and your story brought those years back. I haven't thought about my life with all the guards in a long long time! If you want to post this story it would be a real release for me. These incidents have haunting me for too long!
Video of a guard
stepping on the neck of an unsentenced inmate who is cuffed, restrained and
even has a hood over his head in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail:
You
came to speak at my school a while ago now and I have been meaning to thank you
ever since.
People
come into schools and speak about drugs, sex and danger on a regular basis, yet
the most these presentations amount to are jokes dotted throughout the week
about how people do all of the above anyway before the talk is completely
forgotten. Your account of your time in prison was the first that I'd seen to
really and truly touch every person in that room. You didn't tell us to never
look at drugs, to report anyone who had the slightest knowledge of narcotics or
to stick to every guideline we've ever been given. As a teenager I can well and
truly say that this wouldn't have and continues not to have any effect
whatsoever on the well-being or common sense of my classmates.
The
way you delivered your speech inspired me. The facts were clear but the humour
was prominent, keeping us all on the edge of our seats. You taught me that
after a high there often comes a low, and however hard and rock-bottom that low
may feel, determination and perseverance can always amend things in the end. I
learnt about the hardships in jail, and what happens if you come head-to-head
with the law; but on top of that there are so many more things that will always
stay with me from your talk: The importance of family, the dissolution of
dreams that may well result in something better, and yes, how to get my
priorities straight. I'm sure you receive countless emails daily remarking on
what an awe-inspiring man you are and what a change you make - but I felt that
it would only be fair to give back even the tiniest bit of what you have given
to me in a talk over a year ago.
Thank
you so much,
Keep
inspiring,
Grace
Beverley, Francis Holland School, London
My
response:
Grace,
That's one of the nicest emails I've ever received. I'm sat here eating cheese
on toast with a BIG SMILE ON MY FACE. Thanks so much for taking the time
to express yourself so eloquently!
Video of a schizophrenic prisoner being murdered by guards in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail. His crime was allegedly yelling at a woman in a car park. What a sad waste of life.
