The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Journey to Freedom serves as an exclusive extension of the Living Boldly with Purpose podcast series—a platform that inspires powerful transformation and growth. Journey freedom is a podcast hosted by Brian E. Arnold. The Journey to Freedom is an our best life blueprint exclusively designed for black men where we create a foundational freedom plan. There are five pillars: Identity, Trust, Finances, Health and Faith.
The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Wrongfully Convicted: How One Man Found Purpose After Two Decades Behind Bars
A wrongfully convicted man walks free after 21 years behind bars. How does someone rebuild their life after losing two decades? What mindset allows forgiveness when the system fails so catastrophically?
Dion Patrick's story unfolds with raw honesty as he shares his journey from Chicago's West Side to wrongful imprisonment and eventual exoneration. Born in 1971 and raised by a hardworking single mother who instilled strong values of education and independence, Dion's path took a devastating turn at age 20 when Chicago police targeted him and seven other young Black males for a double homicide they didn't commit.
Despite clear evidence of innocence—one co-defendant was provably in police custody at the time of the murders—Dion spent 21 years incarcerated before withheld exculpatory evidence finally came to light. The system that failed him so profoundly taught him unexpected lessons about humanity: "Most of the people I was taught to dislike or hate became our close friends. We got to understand we were the same people with the same issues."
Perhaps most remarkable is Dion's perspective on anger and forgiveness. "Anger is a wasted emotion," he reflects. "I could want something else with that energy." This philosophy has guided his eleven years since release—reconnecting with his now-adult children, meeting grandchildren, working in violence prevention, advocating for justice reform, and co-authoring "The Hazel Boyz" to document his experience.
Now 53, Dion approaches life with purpose and gratitude: "Everything—nothing that I don't enjoy out here. Even the bad things." His story challenges us to examine our justice system while offering profound wisdom about resilience, identity, and finding joy after unimaginable hardship.
Listen as Dion shares how trust can be rebuilt, purpose discovered, and life embraced even after decades of injustice. His testimony stands as both warning and inspiration—a powerful reminder of humanity's capacity for both terrible failure and extraordinary redemption.
One thing I learned about being in that place most of the people that I was taught to dislike or hate became our close friends and we got to understand that we were the same people. We had the same issues. That gave us opportunity to get to know each other as human beings.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Journey to Freedom podcast. We have another just incredible edition today. I love having these conversations and I love spending time, and I don't know if you know anything about the Journey to Freedom podcast, but I went to a about a year and a half ago. I went to a seminar in Minnesota. It was called the Trusted Edge. We talked about how to lead with trust and how important trust is in our, in our communities, and how we lead with trust, and it was just some really good information. And I called myself before I go there that you know I'm not one uh, which has been a theme in our, in our podcast. The thing has been that, um, you know black men as I've been interviewing, I did 105 last year. My goal was 100. Uh, and then the thing was is that we needed to sometimes see other people doing the thing that we might want to do, to just know that it's possible to do, uh and I call myself not.
Speaker 2:I don't need that. I'm my own man, I can do everything. But when I was at the seminar I found myself counting how many Black men are in this room One, two, three, four which told me if I'm counting which I know I always do that means I need to see people. I need to know that there there's possibilities, as much as my brain and my logic was telling me. I don't. Uh, I kind of believe that there was, and so out of that came okay.
Speaker 2:So how do we get this information into our communities? How do we make sure that we're helping each other the best that we possibly can?
Speaker 2:in all areas is that we can, uh, and so I began to. You know, a guy kind of share with me that that I believe it came from him that said I need you to work with black men, and I was, I was kind of hesitant and saying, okay, do I really want to find black men across the country that are doing things, that are making things happen, that are giving us our values and showing us how to interact in our world and how do we do it with trust and how do we do with our faith and identity and what's all that about? And so, like I said, last year, my goal was 100 black men. We did that. As we're recording this and you guys are watching this, this is the week after the super bowl in 2025 and we had a halftime show. Um, that was a gentleman named kendrick lamar.
Speaker 2:With lamar, which most of you probably know, uh, I, I had some interactions, knowing who he was, but he did a halftime show that I didn't understand and I think maybe we could talk about that a little bit. I was. I thought that, instead of saying I mean, part of it's just the rap genre, priorities. I'm 60 years old and you know I'm just kind of out of touch. I guess they told me that the way that the floor was or the stage was was fashioned after a game called Squid, that I don't play video games, I don't know video games and all that kind of stuff and so, but it just as I was thinking of the black men that were part of that and their stories and their identity. I just wanted to understand it a little bit more.
Speaker 1:But on the side of it.
Speaker 2:Today we have Dion Patrick on and you know, success Leaves Clues and folks that have been able to make it through this world and through this life. And you grew up in Chicago and you're not 27 years old, so you're not. I mean, maybe you are and I'm just missing it, but you seem like you're a little bit more seasoned than that. But part of you know, in times when it was part of the roughest part of our country over the last, you know, 40 or 50 years, the amount of things that have happened in some of the communities there and how you've been able to interpret those are super exciting.
Speaker 2:And so I've asked you to kind of share a story like we asked all of our guests, you know, and then we will just chop it up after that. And maybe we'll have a little bit of time to talk about the Super Bowl halftime. I don't know if you've even seen it or you know. Yeah, of course you did so. Uh, maybe we can go into that a little bit as well, but please start out with your story and tell us who you are. Thank you for being on today um, I'm dion patrick.
Speaker 1:I was born in 1971. Uh was raised in a single parent household until the age of 16. My mother passed away away when I was 16, but I had a very strong, independent mother who exposed me and my brother to a lot of different things that we weren't exposed to in the community that we were born in. At a very young age she got us into like musical instruments. Like I took piano lessons at five, Me and my brother at one time. We could play any brass instrument, we could read music and we was in our school bands for a time. My mother was a very hardworking lady who we didn't see much of because she worked so much. My brother actually went away to college straight out of high school. I was still at home with my mom when she passed away. My brother was away at school.
Speaker 1:I think sometime in life we start to try to figure out like when did our life go off course or go off track? And I think that was a very trying time for me because we were moved from the west side of Chicago to the north side of Chicago just me, my brother and my mom. So we weren't around much family that much, and so when she passed like, I got dropped back into that element and going back to the west side of Chicago and being back around my family every day. And going back to the west side of Chicago and being back around my family every day. Yet I was migrating every day for school back to the north side with my friends that I had developed friendships with, Did pretty good in school for the most part while she was here, Started out in honors classes. My mother took education very strongly. For some reason she still had her high school report cards, but she had all A's. If me and my brother didn't do that, she would pull them out.
Speaker 2:I love it. Is this what you're supposed to be doing, son?
Speaker 1:We understood the angle early. She taught us that I don't think she knew she could raise us to be men. What she knew, that she wanted us to be men. Like because I don't think she could really teach us how to be men because she wasn't one, but I think, like she definitely wanted us to be upright and independent and be strong men and be able to take care of ourselves strong men and be able to take care of ourselves. And so for that part of my life I was okay until 16. And then I ran into some anger issues where I didn't really understand why she wasn't here or why she left so early. So I just think I became angry.
Speaker 1:I started getting into a little trouble, which led to a lot of trouble, and it mostly started fighting and stuff. I became angry. I started getting into a little trouble, which led to a lot of trouble and it mostly started fighting and stuff. But my brother stayed the course, excuse me. He went away to school. Then he came home, he met his wife that he's been married to since 1989. Uh, they had their first baby. He joined the navy and they moved away to jacksonville, florida, which where he's still at right now. He raised his family there. Now his boys are grown uh, around 18, 17, going on to 18, I started running into trouble with the law, like me and my friends were getting into little fights and skirmishes and they were turning into like what kid cat might uh lose his hat or run out of his jacket?
Speaker 1:And they were turning those into strong armed robberies for us, when it wasn't starting out as a robbery, but in the midst of the fight somebody might drop his hat and we'll pick it up. And so I ended up going away to boot camp for like up going away to boot camp for like 14 months, came home, uh for like almost four months, like three months, had some change. Uh ended up being targeted by the chicago police department for a double homicide that I actually had nothing to do with. They targeted seven had nothing to do with. They targeted seven young African American males starting from the age of 15 to 20, and there was one more guy that was 32, that we didn't know which was the eighth person, and they put us all on this case and uh, that case took up the next 21 years of my life, where I sat inside of uh the Illinois department of corrections for 21 years for a crime that I didn't commit. Uh, I have a co-defendant named Daniel Taylor. He sat in there 20 years for a crime that he didn't commit, in which the day of the actual crime he was in the police station for a city, disorderly, so he couldn't have been there. And they knew this from the day that they arrested us and they picked us up because he told them. After they beat a false confession out of him and he got to relax a little bit, he told them like I couldn't have been there because I was in jail that day. They didn't believe him so they sent us over to the county so we sat in there. We left the county in like two and a half years but we ended up doing I did 21 years one month, eight days. Daniel did like 20 years because he came home like six months before me.
Speaker 1:That experience there, I think it was life-changing for me because a lot of the things that I so-called believed in at the time I understood now that they were a facade. I think growing up in our communities we didn't see a lot of fathers, a lot of Black fathers. Let me say that I think the one or two that we did have. Most of us gravitated to him and we respected him as if he was our own father and having that lack of positive male role models in our lives as kids, we became poor managers of our lives and our time and we started hanging out in the neighborhood and dibbling and dabbling in some drug selling, fighting and other things of that nature. So over the course of that 21 years, it actually just taught me a lot about being who you truly are. Truly are the one thing that I truly believe, coming through that situation, that probably 85 to 90% of the guys in jail are pretending to be somebody that they're really not and they're only pretending to be that because they're adapting to their environment and they're trying to protect themselves and stay safe and, like in some sort of the word, like keep the wolves off of them, make sure that they're safe in that environment, right.
Speaker 1:And so I think for me, watching daniel can't go home, because it was ironic, because we had no preparation to be thrust back into society. Like they came to his door one day, told him package stuff, he went home. We had natural life at the time, so we wanted an impression that we still had some court battles to go on and things of that nature. But they just reached out to his lawyer and was like you can go, pick him up. We let him go today. So an officer that he knew allowed him to come see me before he left. So he came to my cell and was like I'm going home.
Speaker 1:And I get posed the question of like how I felt that day. And I think like it wasn't bittersweet. I think it was more sweet, bitter because I was happy to see him wrong, but I was also a little down because I still had to be there. But I told myself and myself, like six months to it, yeah, I'd be at home, because that was the straw that we needed to break the case wide open, because it proved that their whole theory was debunked and it couldn't have been true and it couldn't happen the way they said it happened. So probably six months to the day after that, my lawyers get a call. I'm on the, the yard and the staff come in and was like they called me and then they actually put the handcuffs on me. Why, I didn't know. I thought I was going to the hole or the segregation and when they got me to my cell they was like pack your stuff, you're going home. And my first response was stop playing with me Because the officers had a plan.
Speaker 1:And then at that time we were in a very racist part of Illinois that really mistreated African-American and people of color. So I just really didn't know what the angle was and they was like your lawyer on the way down here to get you. You're going home today and I think in that moment, like I had already convinced myself that I was never coming back to jail, but I was also still doing my jail time as if I was in jail. So I had to turn on the switch in my head like okay, now it's time to get back to doing things the right way and understanding who you truly are and what you mean to your family and your kids and your future grandkids and kids to come right. So my lawyers got there my son. I got to see him and like free for the first time in over 21 years, uh, I left. He was 11 months old when he came to get me that day. He was 22. So I think it was really more emotional for him because I was absent of feeling at the time. So I really had to get back into the mode of getting into my feelings because I didn't really know how to feel, coming straight from that place and being in an environment where it's not cool to really show your feelings right. So it took a while for us to reconnect to the way that we should be, as well as my daughter. Uh, being home has really given me an opportunity to appreciate life and like like just earlier when you asked, like, what am I happy about? What do I do? Everything, nothing that I don't enjoy out here. Even the bad things. I enjoy them because I'm able to go through them, because I think a lot of people didn't even picture me making it this far in life, at 53, or being the man I am today and doing the things that I've done so since I've been home.
Speaker 1:Initially, I always wanted to go back to school because I felt like my mother wanted me and my brother to get a degree, and I did do that for a little while. I didn't finish, but I went and started taking like some early childhood development classes because I wanted to learn better ways to teach my grandkids and show them how things go and different things of that nature. And it was weird to me because in there the term, uh, emotional intelligence came up, okay, okay, and the teacher explained to me that we should have learned this word in kindergarten. I was 44 and I had never heard that word before. So I'm like, where did I miss this at? And then, when we started breaking down what it was, it allowed me to dig off into myself and figure out some of why I do the things the way I do them, and getting back into my emotions and and trying to correct some of the things that I do and how I handle certain situations right. Uh, which I really enjoyed those courses. I did good in school again. So it was like riding a bike to me, like education always came easy for me, like my brother always tell people, like studying and education came easy for me, like I didn't have to, I didn't struggle, like if you show me something, I'm going to pick up on it and I'm going to figure it out. And so that was a part of our life. Uh, so that was a part of our life.
Speaker 1:And then I also got into the violence prevention in chicago, because the youth in our communities are so misguided and misled where they pillage off each other like they really like, see each other as their enemy and it's not the and like cause. One thing I learned about being in that place most of the people that I was taught to dislike or hate, became my close friends. We got to understand that we were the same people. We had the same issues, we all had a lack of resources in our community, we all were just being raised the same way, but we had never talked on the street. So that gave us opportunity to get to know each other as human beings. And I still can. I've been home 11 years now and I still communicate with a lot of them. They still call me. I reach back out to their families and check on them and if I have this cinema, a little money to make sure they're straight in there.
Speaker 1:I take calls, uh, but in the violence prevention setting, it taught me a lot as well, because it gave me the opportunity to go inside the cook county jail and talk to some guys that at their age was the age I was at when I started to make missteps and do things the wrong way, and I actually had a story to tell, and so it was like and I actually had a story to tell, and so it was like it relieved me of a lot of things, like it allowed me to really like become the voice of the voices and be able to talk to these guys, and I think it resonated with them because it was coming from somebody that had been through what they were going through, and so I worked there all the way to the time I moved.
Speaker 1:But, like, the city of Chicagoago is a beautiful place, right, but I think there's so many like dark pockets in it that if you're looking at it from just the pictures, you'll be like I would love to go there, but it's also like you just can't drift off into certain things, a certain areas, right. So I think for me, being in that violence prevention realm, it taught us a lot, because we started to deal with uh cbt, which is cognitive behavioral therapy. We started dealing with uh trauma-informed care. So we started understanding trauma and the triggers of trauma and how things go. We understand direct and indirect trauma right.
Speaker 1:And how those things can affect an individual right? Because we started to end up talking to the legislators in City Hall and they used to make this statement about good and bad kids. I don't like that terminology because I think all kids are good kids. I don't like that terminology because I think all kids are good kids and even the bad kids were good kids at some point until something happened to them that changed their life. Because if you're not looking at the root of the issue, then you're really not dealing with the issue, and so you can't just think like, oh, he's a terrible person. You got to dig off into him and see why. Like what happened in his life that made him become who he is today. Right, and a lot of these guys don't want to be bad guys, like they just don't know anything different, and so for me, like, just being in that space allow me to really like just open up and get better at articulating my message and talking about my story. Uh, so, as of now, like I'm just, I'm just enjoying life.
Speaker 1:Right now, I'm getting closer to my kids, trying to get them to understand because they're 32 and 33 now that they're not kids, but when they do something wrong. They run from me. You're not 10. Like you can still talk to me because you're an adult. Like let's have a conversation. But I think when they know they've disappointed me they shy away from me.
Speaker 1:And it's like just getting them to understand. Like we can talk about anything. You may not like what I say, but at the end of the we're going to come to a solution. And then I think, like I tell my kids all the time like I didn't like what my mother said a lot as a kid, but if I'd have followed her blueprint to the t I'd have never went through any of the stuff I went through, and understand that now. Like I understand that our parents do know best sometimes, if not most of the time right for for us. So it's like just getting a better understanding of life and understanding who I am as a person and what I really and truly bring to the table. I'm just comfortable now in being myself, because I think, like as a kid we set out to impress people a lot. Like I don't need any validation from anywhere anymore. Like I'm fine who I am, I'm fine with me and who I am and I'm comfortable in my skin though that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Lots of questions, um. So were you exonerated? Is that how it is? Did they let you out? How did that progress?
Speaker 1:Yes, we were exonerated. We have a certificate of innocence and a vacate order. So they actually decided at some point and it's crazy because I tell people all the time if it wasn't for some people that we least suspected, we would probably still be sitting there, because we were filing petitions the whole time and, in the course of my co-defendant, daniel Taylor, found a position, that was the guy that was in jail that day. It happened the attorney general's office asked for every piece of paper pertaining to our case from day one them not cleaning up their own backyard. They sent it to him and as the lady was going through it, she stumbled across some papers that proved that they locked us up December the 3rd and started sending us to the county December the 5th. By December the 26th or 27th they knew for a fact that Daniel was in jail and they never gave us those papers. Like in the way the law is set up, they have to give you everything, whether it helps or hurts you or it's a Brady violation. So what they did was they never gave our attorneys those papers. So we didn't see those papers for 19 years. Wow. And so when those papers came out, then everything started coming to light and they bagged off of his conviction, which was we had like what they considered to be a statement case.
Speaker 1:My rapido was 15.
Speaker 1:He had an iq of 67 or 68 at the time.
Speaker 1:He was the first kid that they took in the room at badger, to the point where he just picked out pictures and was like, yeah, I know him, I know him, I know him, I hang with him, and they started connecting dots so everybody's statement was connected to that. When they got to me and my other two co-defendants, they couldn't get us to sit in front of a court reporter so they started handwriting statements for us because they couldn't get us to sit there, because I asked for my lawyer when I first got there they never called my lawyer, contacted my lawyer. So now when they say, okay, we can't put them in front of a stenographer and had them type, we're gonna just write him a statement and that's how we're gonna move forward with him and that's how it really started. So, yes, we were definitely exonerated. We cleared all charges, our records have been expunged. So, like as we sit here today, like to them that stuff never happened, but to us it's forever a scar that we're gonna be 20 years in your life is, was there any?
Speaker 2:uh, you know, hey, we're sorry. We're gonna have to give you money for the rest of your life because we we improperly incarcerated you for 40 years. What?
Speaker 1:absolutely they. They never, they're never going to apologize because they never want to admit their wrongdoing. Right, like with me, I ended up having to go to trial on a civil suit and they put me through it all over again like they was trying to convince my jury that I was a double murderer that was trying to get rewarded some money and they just painted this picture of me that just was like. I was back in the interrogation room again in 1992 and this was 2016, I think and when my other co-defendants they settled. So they never saw a courtroom again, but they settle out of court. But I actually had to go back through the whole trauma of, uh, sitting through those things and them saying those things about me.
Speaker 1:So it was definitely a little bit worse for me than it was the other guys and did that end up okay for you or what? What ended up in the civil trial? Oh yeah, we. Actually we all came out on top and okay. I think for me, like people ask me now I'm angry, like and I always say no, because I feel like anger is a wasted emotion, because I could want something else with that energy as opposed to being angry about them. So I'm just, I feel like people ask me all the time like how I'm doing and my ass is always great, my life is great, like I can't. I can't complain, but what for? I think now I'm just trying to rewrite my narrative and my obituary and I want to put some other things on there before I leave this my obituary, and I want to put some other things on there before I leave this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you um, you had your children, you know young, you know, you went into and your daughter's older than your son. My son is older than my daughter, okay, um, so, during during that time that you were incarcerated, were they, were you able to communicate with them and and were they able to visit you? Or was it just 20 years of you had to re rekindle that relationship after you?
Speaker 1:got up, I think, with my son it was a little bit more of a connection because his mother had a lot of people helping keep us connected. So we talked a lot. I didn't see him as much, right, but we definitely on the regular. My daughter it would be a struggle at times because she stayed in wisconsin and, uh, it wasn't as easy for me to communicate with her or to see her as much, but we definitely always knew each other. When she got to a certain age, me and her her wrote a little more and just tried to stay connected that way.
Speaker 2:And so once you were exonerated and let out, what was that reunion like with your kids and now they're because their belief had to be. You know, he says he's innocent. I kind of believe him, or I really believe him, but I'm not sure because they haven't been here. But then when they realized like this was all nonsense, yeah, I think like it's.
Speaker 1:it's weird. Like before christmas of uh, 2013, I had a court date. So my lawyers assumed I was coming home then because daniel came in June or July 13th. So they had all my family there, like my cousins, my kids, my daughter came up from Milwaukee and they didn't let me go. They were like they're challenging my petition, they're not letting me go. So my lawyer she actually broke down and started crying and my family was like what's wrong with her? Right, but it was like. It was emotional for her because it was right before christmas. So she wanted me to be home for the holidays.
Speaker 1:And so they turned around january, the 9th of 2014, and decided they were going to vacate my conviction. So they held me for another two or three weeks. So my son my lawyers called him and was like get dressed, we're about to come get you so we could take this six, seven hour ride to go pick up your dad. Right? He didn't even want to go, like he was crying. He didn't believe it because he thought it was going to be like they were going to get there and they were going to tell him they not letting me go. He didn't believe it because he thought it was going to be like they were going to get there and they were going to tell him they're not letting me go. He didn't want to go at all. His mom kind of forced him in the car and I think it was OK for him once he got there and I walked out of there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it actually happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was hard for him to believe. And then my daughter, she actually got to town I want to say the next day, because everything happened so fast they couldn't get her from wisconsin and get her down there as well. So I saw her and two of my grandbabies the next day and she was pregnant with my third grandbaby that's neat when I think about it.
Speaker 2:I kind of started the show talking about trust and I would think you know for you and I might be wrong that it's hard to trust people After you've been through this horrible ordeal of you know people just making stuff up and you know how do you go through life with people that come into your world and not your world and be able to to develop trust uh, I definitely know I have trust issues.
Speaker 1:Uh, how I deal with them. I deal with them on an individual basis, like, uh, I definitely think trust is earned, is not given. And I think, like I definitely think trust is earned, it's not given. And I think, like, uh, some people give it and you can lose their trust, right? I think I'm kind of the opposite now where and I saw that, said that and I saw young quest is like trust. I wrestle with it like all the time, right, and yet I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not a skeptic, I'm not a person that goes into everything skeptical either. So I do go in open-minded, but you can close my mind off quickly and you can present something to me that doesn't sit well with me. I think I'm also in a space where I'm okay when people don't want to talk to me or be around me, because I went through that so much in there that I've been conditioned to be okay with people coming and going. I need to get away from that, because I find myself doing that with my kids. Sometimes we disagree and they don't call me. It could be two, three weeks go by. Neither one of us will pick up the phone. To get away from that, because I find myself doing that with my kids. Sometimes we disagree and they don't call me. It could be two, three weeks go by. Neither one has to pick up the phone because I'm in a space where, all right, you don't want to talk to me, okay, but this is my kid, it's not some random person or everyday person.
Speaker 1:So I think I I definitely struggle with a lot of things and then, like I have a a huge network of guys that are coming home because when we was going in there, like the juvenile natural life issue was prevalent out of my friends and did 26, 20, 30 years from the age of 16 until they came home and now they're out doing amazing things. So we stay in touch with each other and we keep this relationship going that we built in there. So we all like be that support system for one another. I have a friend now who's the executive director of the Illinois Restored Justice Foundation and he did 26 years and he came home and hit the ground running and he's in his element. Like that's what he should be doing talking to people about being systematically impacted and not someone telling the story who's never been impacted by it, and I think they love the way he presents it and he's he's doing amazing things right now with the juvenile justice system right now with the juvenile justice system.
Speaker 2:When we think about identity, we often talk about who you are as who you hang around and who you spend time with, and you talked about a time before you went to prison, where you know, after your mom passed away, where you were in wrong crowds. And then, when I think of the criminal justice system and I don't know, you know, you think of there are definitely people in there that shouldn't be, but there are people who probably should be in there, so that becomes your. You know your identity, or your group of people that you hang out with.
Speaker 2:Now you're released and you're expected to act and do things a certain way. How did your identity shift? And it sounds like there's some really good people. Maybe you did some dumb things that you were able to hang out with while you were there Really good mindsets and you had classes and that kind of stuff that were helping you. But how was your identity shaped, from that boy who lost his mom that was doing wonderful things, to these wrong crowds? Now you're incarcerated, but we're around some good people. What just kind of talk to me about your identity through your existence.
Speaker 1:That question. It covers a lot of things, right, like cause for us in there. For 12 years of my time that I spent in there we went up predominantly African American Penitentiary that was closer to Chicago than down south, so a lot of the staff there came from where we came from. So they kind of understand us and they saw the good in some of us and allowed us to grow and we kind of grew up together in there, because they might have started working at 18, 19, 20 years old. We came in there at 20 years old and 25, 26 years later we all still here. They haven't retired yet, we still in our time and we had a counselor in there named Miss Miles who started this lifestyle re-direction class and she hand picked some of us like I want y'all in my class and when we went over there it taught us a lot about men, roles in the community, expectations of us in our communities and what we should bring to our communities and who we should be in our communities, right, and I think a lot of us brought those teachers home with us and we're putting them to work now and understanding that we've always had a role.
Speaker 1:We just didn't understand it as a kid and I think, like for me, my identity is to me, has always been the same Like I'm a outspoken guy, I stand on what I stand on, I believe what I believe. If I don't feel something's right, I'm not doing it, and I've always been that way and I'm still like that. Like, if my friends want to do so, I never. I'm not a drinker, I don't get high. My friends started doing that stuff as kids. I'm like I'm fine, I don't want to do that, and people be like with all us doing it. Well, go ahead, I'm gonna sit over here till y'all through right. But I think that came from me growing up in a family of addiction and seeing what that turned people into like my favorite cousins and aunts. I would love them to death when they were sober. When they get drunk, though, they turn into like to me as a kid, like a monster, and I just somewhere and cry because my family will start treating them a certain way too and they'll drag them up out of there.
Speaker 1:I was like you to go right, so I always knew like that wasn't something that I wanted to do right, so that wasn't something that I wanted to do right. So I think for me and you definitely hit it on the head like I ran across some very bad people in there. There's some people that belong in jail and there's a lot of people that went in there as a kid and if you get them a second chance, they're going to show you what they're capable of and I think like, but you have some guys and that I didn't go in as kids and when there's grown men and this is who they are and they hurt innocent people and stuff like that. So I'm not conflicted about is jail needed or do some people belong to jail?
Speaker 1:Some people are sick in there and then I think, think too, like jail hasn't even become about rehabilitation anymore. It's like a mental health facility. They're pumping these psychotropic drugs in these guys right to keep them calm, but then you send them home and they can't afford the drug no more, and now they're lashing out and doing things that they probably wouldn't have done had you not had them addicted to these drugs that they take I mean, and you might not be comfortable, but when I think of the 20 years you were there and not part of a workforce or a, you know, being able to have a career or do things that most people are doing in their 20s and 30s.
Speaker 2:And then you come out and you're expected to live and you're expected to afford things and be able to buy things. How difficult or easy has it been with you financially to be able to do the things that know God put you on this earth and to do because I know as people are listening to this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know somebody, or I am somebody who it just seems like it's not. It's not working and I can't figure out how to make it work so that I can survive and let. How have you been able to do that?
Speaker 1:I think for me, like like 14 to 15 of those years, I kept a job in there, like some type of thing, while I moved around. Like I still get up at a certain time every day and it's 11 years later, but like I had this alarm clock in my head that wakes me up and I start moving around, like so like coming home and then having the mother that I had and the memories that I have, like I watched this lady get up and go to work every day, so I know what it looks like. And I think some kids grow up in environments where they don't see that, so they don't know what that looks like and it has to be taught, right. But for me, like my mother always instilled in me and my brother like always instilled in me and my brother like the importance of being self-dependent and not being dependent on somebody and being able to like take care of yourself and you everybody's going to need some help at some point in time, right, I think I had an amazing support system around me when I came home that helped me transition back out into society and and I had a cousin that told me before and it resonates with me to this day she was like don't let people make you feel bad because you're doing good, and it went over my head when she first said it.
Speaker 1:Right, and now I understand it, because we have these family members that will call you for, uh, bills that they really don't need and if you can't afford them, that means you shouldn't have that right. And she was going through that. So she just was preparing me for what was to come, and it definitely is something that I always revert back to when somebody try to make me feel bad because, uh, like I'm in a position now where people don't even take it when I say I ain't got it, because in their mind, you got it, I do, but I don't have it for that though. Yeah, so like let's, let's, let's differentiate the difference. Like I have it, but I don't have it because evidently you don't need that, because you can't afford it. So it's just understanding like, uh, how? Because, like one thing I'm proud of, like I'm proud of like my credit score, I I do things differently. Like I just take care of stuff a certain way. If it's something I can't afford, I'm gonna eliminate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell people all the time because my kids didn't come to me. Like you, co-sign for me a cop? Absolutely not. I already give you some money before I put my fingers. Yeah, I will fall out with somebody about something that I've worked so hard for and I I take, like this I feel good about where I'm at right now in life and the things that I can do and putting myself in position, but I think, like I definitely had some, a lot of help as far as financial literacy and understanding what to do and what not to do, what's a good buy, what's a lot of good buy, and just taking on those things and trying to get those off to my kids, though, because I also, like I'm a guy that want to create generational wealth. I don't want to just sit around and enjoy it now and then, when I leave, nobody has anything. It's like how do we build something to where your kids kids see this and still be able to live a certain lifestyle?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, like when you, when you came out, you're exonerated. So so you don't have to put on these applications that you know you're a felon or anything, but were there but I actually did.
Speaker 1:You did really. Yes, because it still pops up when they do a background check or if I don't put it on there. They do a background check and it shows up because they didn't get exonerated to after all the legal stuff gotcha. So if I got pulled over for a traffic stop, they could still see what I had been in jail for. So a lot of their questions used to be when did you get parole? I didn't get parole and they'll be looking at like what you mean, but I just felt like I didn't owe them that answer.
Speaker 1:I just left it out of the road like this, asking me that write my ticket and let me go where I'm going, because I also feel like, too, I'm not that 20 year old kid that they used to pull over. Yeah, no insurance, no driver's license. So I wasn't afraid now because I'm doing everything the right way. So here's my license, here's my insurance. Write your ticket and let me go Right. But it definitely was still showing up. Even when I tried to get housing when I first came home, I was denied a couple of times because they would see that on my background. So my lawyers had to come in and speak to some of the management companies and send them articles from the newspaper that showed them that this man was wrongfully convicted. He wasn't in jail for something he did. They just did this to him. So some people just started giving me a chance and then, with my rental history, I was able to get other places, just based on that, yeah, once you got going going.
Speaker 2:but at that first few years I can imagine it was, you know you probably almost felt like why are you still doing this to me? Because the systems haven't caught up with the things you do so now you, you know, I want to just kind of jump forward.
Speaker 2:So now you're 53, you're you know, you've been out 11 years. You're doing some phenomenal things. What does your life in your mind look like? I know the average Black man lives to be 72, but you and I both are going. No, we've got to live to 100. What are some of the things that you want to do? You want to make sure. You talked about generational wealth and legacy and that kind of stuff. What does that look like in your future mind, I guess?
Speaker 1:I think for me, like I love talking to the youth because I know it's a mentality thing and changing their mentality and the way they see things right, uh, I don't really separate myself from them because I was them before, so I understand. Don't really separate myself from them because I was them before, so I understand a little bit, being that we really don't know if we come in or go on at that age and we're just doing things because it's the hip thing to do, like I have people that talk to me about the squares or the nerves in school Now, at this age, I think they're the coolest people in the world because they never went through anything. And to show you how small this world was, I'm going back a little bit. The last Cook County State's attorney was my high school classmate. We were in the same graduating class. Really, yes, kim Fox, my high school classmate, and she knew me and so just seeing like the different avenues that people could be taking.
Speaker 1:But I think for me, like I just want to continue to be healthy, I want to continue to enjoy life, I want to be around like minded people, I want to be around people that's trying to do something positive. I'm just tired of like a lot of negativity that comes into this world and the things people do and how they handle certain situations. So, uh, that's that's for me, like basically, I just want to be happy, I want to enjoy whatever time I have left on this earth. I'll continue to build a strong relationship and bond with my kids and my grandkids and just people getting to know me for me and not for things that you can do for them or stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, so you saw the Super Bowl. Just give me your viewpoint of what you or what we can take from that, um, because I didn't understand it and so I'm a lot like like you, right, watching it.
Speaker 1:I think we all watched it for entertainment purposes and we missed the messaging. And I think it was powerful. It was strong. I mean, he talked to the, he spoke for the voices he allowed. They gave him a platform and I think he started out and he said that the revolution will be televised today.
Speaker 1:Like y'all pick the right time, but the wrong guy right, like I'm about to tell you about yourself in this 15 minutes y'all just gave me and he found uncle uh uh, samuel jackson, and he was uncle sam, but he was also a planter, uncle Tom as well, in the same sense of the word, right, and I think he just he definitely spoke volumes. He talked about the 40 acres and a mule that we've never gotten. You know that they promised us coming out of slavery. Like, oh, we're going to get y'all this and we've never seen it.
Speaker 1:And he was just like trying to bring some sense of consciousness back to us and for us to be conscious of what's really going on around us, right, because he was talking to them. He was talking to the leaders of the world and let them know. Like I see what y'all doing and I'm gonna try to open my people eyes and enlighten them. And I think it's funny because, like, I saw it on social media when they was talking about all the things he did and I had to go back and watch it and I saw everything that they broke down when they was at it on social media because he showed how, uh, the american flag had split when it first, when he first came out, he just was showing the different things that's going on in the world right now that we sometimes don't pay attention to because we condition and convince ourselves that I don't got nothing to do with me.
Speaker 2:But it has everything to do with us well, I'm glad you went back and you watched it and you know and I hope that folks seek understanding you know in uh that that process, because you know understanding and knowing, you know the message that he was trying to give um that can make it better for all of us and to be able to.
Speaker 2:When you think about living in purpose, um, and, and doing what god put you on this earth to do, do you feel like you're now being able to live in that purpose, and can you do that without serving others? It sounds like you're wanting to talk to kids and maybe prevent some of the things that you had to go through in your life, but what does that look like for you as being in purpose?
Speaker 1:I think it starts with self, though. Like you have to put yourself in purpose and you have to. You have to live in purpose. Like before you start instilling in somebody else, you have to make sure you're living the right way. And because sometimes it don't be the message to be the messenger, and if the message is coming from a poor messenger, we're not going to take it like you're giving me a message that you don't even stand on, like, yeah, I'm fine on that, right. Yeah, and it's funny because, like a lot of these conversations we're having, like I've just had conversations with people in the last couple days.
Speaker 1:I was just talking to my, my guy wendell rob, who's the executive director now and he's turned 50 in a couple days, and he was just talking about how, because I came home like four or five years before them and he was like how I set the stage for everything that's happening around us. Because in that place you get a lot of guys that go home and be like man, I got you, I'm gonna check on your mother, I'm gonna check on your grandmother, I'm gonna see you something you never hear from them again. Those guys haven't went a day in there without somebody in their hearing. For me, like I was, I go to court dates, I support people and he, like that, showed him what he should come home and do again, like he showed somebody else. And so that's how that network of friends that are here now going to work came about. Because I think I was one of the first to come home and really stand on what I said.
Speaker 1:Because I felt like, too, like me and my brother, we grew up in the same house, right, but we had two different lifestyles, because high school, when I was still younger, then he went away to college, so I had spent more time around those guys in prison than I did my real brother, so I had connected with them a little bit more than I did my real brother until I came home, like that was a two-and-a and a half year age discrepancy. So he had his friends, I had my friends. You know, our big brothers don't never want the little brother with them. You go over there, right, me and my brother, we love each other, we're, we're our only siblings, like. So we definitely connect. But I think, going through that, uh, uh, I connected with a few other guys that I consider to be my brothers, right, that's weird because when wendell came home, I went, I was down and I picked them up coming out of the penitentiary and we were riding down the expressway one day and I think I got emotional first and I'm like turn the music down.
Speaker 1:I'm like, look at it, bro. He like what you looking at. Like bro, we riding down 290 right now. Yeah, we both had natural life before and we was on the gallery talking about trying to come home, but now we're in a car, we ride down the expressway, we just left from eating and we're doing what we want to do.
Speaker 1:It's so funny because when I came home, when I was in there, I used to get impatient. He always was like man, you just have to be patient. I'm like what. I didn't want to be patient because I'm still in the car I found myself when I got home and his court dates weren't going away.
Speaker 1:He wanted him to go. Like you got to be patient. He'd be like man, you want to be a patient. When you was like no, you expect me to do it? Yeah, okay, like we had. We had these eye-opening moments since we've been home where it's like we real, we, we really free, like and we still have them years later where we'd be like because he I did for my 50th birthday I did dubai. He was there and we in dubai, looking like bro, we in dubai right now because we watched these commercials in zealand and it was like, okay places, I want to go, like aruba, uh, to make all these different places that we had never seen because we had never really left out of that box of our so-called community that we didn't own anything in. Right, we never really left our neighborhoods and now we travel in the world and we were able to experience different things that we never saw coming.
Speaker 2:That's so cool different things that we never saw coming. That's so cool. Thank you so much for just sharing yourself and your vulnerability, and I think it's going to resonate a lot with our listeners. I was kind of selfish in asking the questions that I wanted to know, but there might be some things that you want to share to the podcast to any of the listeners who are listening today that I didn't get to talk about or I didn't get to share, uh, to the podcast to any of the listeners who are listening today that I didn't get to talk about or I didn't get to share.
Speaker 1:so I'd love for you to take some time right now just to share your heart oh, I think your questions were definitely on point and they were needed, because I'm more of a back and forth type of talk, right, uh? But right now, like me and four of my co-defendants me, daniel taylor, paul phillips and lewis gardner we have a book out called the hazel boys, spelt with the z b-o-y-z. Uh, it's on amazon and barnes noble, and it's just a breakdown. It's a trial of four innocent men, young men. Some were boys because of four innocent men, young men. Some were boys because Louis was 15, daniel and Paul was 17, and I was 20 at the time when this case happened.
Speaker 1:And we just want to get the story out, because now we feel like we can tell our own story, we have our own voice and we also feel like we're the voice of the voices, because I know for a fact, wrongful convictions didn't start with us, nor has it ended with us. They're still happening every day. There are guys in there that really need some help, and I think some people need to understand that the system might not be totally broken, but it's broken though, yeah, and and it's biased, like, like it treats people of color differently than it treats everybody else, and I think just knowing, like some of the things cause a lot of the things we say and we talk about. As far as our book we can prove it through police reports. This isn't just our word against them. We know where they started to create evidence and fabricate evidence and do certain things to solidify their positions right. To know where they started to create evidence and fabricate evidence and do certain things to solidify their positions right.
Speaker 1:And even in our, in my trial because I'm only one winter trial on the civil, like they were still mine 20 some years later, like I think one of the first questions my lawyer asked them was like when the first time you heard beyond Patrick's name, they said when they went in the room with some pictures and show them to the 15 year old kid, louis Gardner. So my lawyer, like where did you get a picture of him from If you had never heard his name? Oh, no, no, no, no, we didn't have a picture. But they did have a picture and they ordered those pictures. They had wrote a police report said clear this case after their days off. They had wrote a police report said clear this case after their day is off. That was November the 29th. They started arresting us December the 2nd. That day off ended December the 2nd. They ordered those pictures November the 29th. Yet when you ask them, did y'all have any leads or any suspects on November the 29th? They would tell you no.
Speaker 2:So why were you ordering pictures of us? You didn't have any suspects. On November 29th they would tell you no, so why were you ordering pictures of us? Ordering more pictures?
Speaker 1:yeah, you didn't have any suspects, but they had already made up their mind that they were giving us that case, no matter what. I think it's a good read. It's enlightening. It gets the message out that restorative justice is needed. Be some. There need to be some more talks around how that looks and I think more system systemly impacted people should be at that table, just people at the table who have never been impacted, because some people believe in a system wholeheartedly, some of us believe in it partially and some of us don't believe in it at all. Right, but there's a middle ground where we have to meet at and start to make sure it is fair and it's unbiased well.
Speaker 2:again, thank you for being on today. Uh, thank you for, like I said, just just sharing who you are, the books, the, the hazel boysel Boys, and please go ahead and check out a copy, read it. I'm looking forward to you know, if you want to subscribe or tell people about it or even send this out so that you can share with people some of the hope, some of the things that he shared with us, and not being angry you know, it would be, when I think through it, if I had 20 years where I wasn't able to be free, that I might come out very angry. But instead he comes out and he's willing to help others and move people forward and serve and try to prevent other folks from doing that. And so I thank you, dion, for just being that man and being that man who's able to go through what you went through and still be able to share with us.
Speaker 1:And so you know, go ahead and like I said hit the subscribe button.
Speaker 2:Do those things. Make sure you get great episodes for anybody to watch and look at. And then, don't forget, I believe, that you are God's greatest gift and he loves you. If you allow him to, and if you do that, your life could be totally different.
Speaker 1:So you guys have an amazing, awesome, incredible day.
Speaker 2:We'll talk to you on the next one.