I was a criminal. Everybody who knew me, knew that about me. I never made no pretense about it. I had a rap sheet as long as my arm. I was always having run-ins with the police. The police knew me and I knew them. I was known to them as Dirty Red. I was in and out of jail all of the time. Hell, I was more comfortable in jail than out. I knew my way around jail. I got so many stories I could write a book. But Imma’ tell you this one story. It was some unjustifiable shit that happened. Listen to me when I tell you about some of these phony police fucks and how they do just as much crime shit as any other criminals. They just don’t always get caught cause they got they shit organized and backed up by the politicians and shit. Look here, not a whole lot of police shit bothered me, but there is this one altercation I had with them that stands out. It was August…1972. a day, even if I tried I could never forget.

Alright so I was in my car, my 72convertible  black cadi with the white walls, diamond in the back. Casette player, boosted speakers wit hwoofers, The sound was so sweet you would think you was up in a club…I was listening to the mothership comnection Parliament Funcadelic…

I had been making runs and handling my street transactions all that day. And let me tell you I was ridin’ dirty as fuck. I was high as a kite Yep I’m that fool that not only indulges but likes his own product. I was smokin’ in the car and that shit was so potent it had me swerving all ovver the road. You could smell the weed from miles away. My music was so loud it was violating all kinds of city noise ordinances. Oh It was bumpin.

My cousin Benny was in the car with me. He was visiting from down South. Benny was a preacher’s son, so that meant he was gone be a preacher. He was always trying to talk some in sense into me about gettin’ right with God and I kept telling him that ain’t my calling. When we was younger Benny was my road Dog, down for whatever the cause I was about or whatever the hell of shenanigans I was up to. Then one day he said he caught the Holy Ghost and from then on, all he ever talked about was saving somebody soul, somebody gettin’ saved and about how he was saved and walking and talkin’ in the footsteps of the Lord God Almighty.

Now, every once in a while Ido go to church, cause I be liking the choir. Choir music is always cool. Calms me down, But then, I got to get back out on them streets.

Yeah, that day, everything was flowing pretty cool. And  then, I saw the lights flashing in the rear view mirror and then, I heard the sirens. Benny saw that we were getting pulled over, he got so nervous. Benny was a good kid, but he was getting real restless and shit and hollored out, “oh man this is the KKK! I looked over to haim and said the what? I told him, “no they the police, they gone give me ticket cause of the expired tags. He started looking around like he wanted to get out the car right then and there. I said, take it easy, don’t make any sudden moves and talk when spoken to. ” I was 17 at the time and Benny was about 14. But Benny wasn’t hearin’ anything I was sayin’ to him, he kept freakin’ out and then right before the officers made it to the car he said “fuck this! They ain’t killin’ me! This dude then, jumps out the car and starts running like a bat outta hell He was moving fast. Then the two officers looked at each other like they was in shock and then they quickly snapped out of it and took off runing, chasing after him. That shit got live, real fast! While they was running one of the Officers called for backup from his shoulder phone. Immediately like out of nowhere four other officers were on the scene. One of them quickly apprehended me and threw me in the backseat of the patrol car, locked the door and told me “don’t you fuckin’ move” and before I knew it they were all running in the direction of the other police that was chasing Benny. By now I’m looking around trying to figure out how I can escape.

Then, the next I see, all those police officers was dragging Benny towards the patrol car, like he a caught animal. He was kicking and screaming “let me go, let me go, I didn’t do nothing. They got him near the car and I was looking down at the situation , they started tasering him. A lot. They tasered him about ten times. He was screaming. Loud. They was tortuing him, doing that shit they did to the Jews during the holocaust, black people in South Africa, that apartheid shit. And all for a traffic violation and fourteen year old kid that runt off cause he scared the police gon’ kill em.  

Even though I was sitting in the back of that patrol carnot knowing what they gon’ do to me. I couldn’t get it out of my head what I was witnessing. They then hog tied his legs to his hands, his wrists, you know the way you hog tie a pig that you getting ready to slaughter.

Let me tell you how they had him. The way they did it they turnt him on his stomach while he was already handcuffed, they they tied his legs up and pulled his legs with the rope to his wrists, after they pulled his hands around his back, then they tied them all up together. He was wrapped and roped. Again, I’m there for Benny but my imagination was fuckin’ running wild and i asked myself the question, where the fuck did these motherfuckas learn that shit and how did they know to just come together and execute that hog tying shit so fast? 

By now my high eas bloen., I was alert and thinkinhg.I think I even said this out loud. “These motherfuckas right here and that right there” that right there .. that that is some inhumane bullshit going down tight now in front of me. I am witnessing human rights violations . Man these police be acting real low class.

I was looking right at Benny, out eyes caught, he was looking a t me directly like help me, he kept trying to fight em off,. You know when they got you like that, nobody can fight for you. My hands were tied literally.

but we ain’t really free. Are we? So how can we fight back? How can we fight this kind of unrighteousness. Its like they be writing tickets, doing the law enforcement shit on a legal level, keeping law and order, doing they job, then they snap, take a break from that action and then go to fuckin’ a brotha up, fighting you, gettin’ hostile, beating you, telling you ain’t shit and kicking your ass and then finish they ticket writing shit. Having a bad attitude like you was fucking with them. What kind of mind, what kind of brain you got to do that shit to another human being?

You know my father, a military man said to me one day. He’s a really wise man. He said son, get your motherfuckin’ ass off them streets before on of those cops meat pack yo’ ass! Yeah, I’m hearing him loud and clear. Some law enforcers are nothing more than perverted delinquents themselves that possess an appetite to kill. 

Who? me? No no, nah. That was the old me. Today I am a preacher. I have my own ministry, my own church with a congregation of twenty-five-hundred parishioners. I have a wife, five kids and the house with the picket fence. I am in church seven days week, thanking, praising, walking and talking in the name of the Lord God Almighty.

Benny? Man, somehow Benny survived that shit. He did his time for resisting arrest and after he got out teenager jail he never looked back He is now Top Dog in them streets, making all the money. A bigger baller than I ever was.