Emerging from the Shadows A Tale of Redemption Behind the Walls

Music. Welcome, my good people, welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show, and I'm with you all. Cj Moneyway, let's get it.

Music. What's up my good people? This your boy, cj Moneyway. Welcome to the Moneyway Show Today. I got my son on with me. Hey, what's your name, boy? My name is Jacobi Young. I'm from Detroit, michigan, 17 years old.

Hey, alright, so I brought you on the day, man, because not only because you're my son and because I love you, you know, but this is things that I want to do because I feel like for the young people out there and even for some of the older people out there, I think you got a story to tell. I think you went well. I don't think I know. You went through something that was traumatic, something that was life-experiencing, hopefully life-changing, but you know, like those, that's a lot of curveballs at time. But I just want you to tell the people, man, some of the things that you went through and particularly that certain thing that you went through last year.

So last year, around November, my life took a change. On November 15th I went to something that I never thought a million years. I went to jail for a school threat that I made toward my school that I never knew here, never thought I would do, and that's when my life took a change. On November 15th I got processed through the Parade of Death Police Department and I was in the hold of about six hours before they transferred me to Oakland County Children's Village where I got finger-crainied mugshot changed and I got took down to the Florida quarantine. About my first two minutes there I was in the fight, almost my first two minutes on the pod, and I got moved off the pod, moving to the fishbowls, which is another pod, and the guards came through asking what was going on. They didn't know what was going on and I got moved to a different floor where I quarantined for six days quarantined probably the worst time of my life, being in the cell 24 hours a day, just you and the wall, nothing else, no pencils, no books, nothing, just you and the walls all day and a bright light trying to sleep at night.

I think my first two days they put me on my first day there they put me on Suicide Watch because I wasn't eating nothing and when you're on Suicide Watch they give you just a stout. You got no clothes on that, just a green thing and you need two blankets. And I continued not to eat nothing. I would take the whole time I was there to eat and there I was in a place you don't want to be. That was when times I didn't call my mom about two weeks. It was because every time I called her on the phone I would hear her cry. I didn't want to hear that on the phone.

When I finally got out of quarantine it probably got a little better and you could probably be on the floor with other people. But then you're on the floor with other people and you're crazy people fighting every day. I say somebody, get beat through on that face what your life is there. You say beat through on that face, beat through on that face real life. So you said that you know November 15 is the day that you actually man. That was crazy because that was like seven years to the date that I published my book man. Bo-fi is open to Bo-Fi and it is my young boy walking through life with his eyes wide shut.

But you say that you know you went to school and you made a threat. So like what actually provoked you to do something of that nature? Like what was the atmosphere like? Because, if I'm not mistaken, it was like the day before that a young lady from Detroit, your same school right, that she did the same thing and they came and picked up from her house and you know she got arrested and then you went out and did it the next day. So I guess I just want to know what was your mind set like? What was you really thinking that? You know what I'm saying like, baby, that this couldn't happen to you. I didn't think about none of the repercussions that came with it when it occurred. But if it didn't really hit me until I got the card to go down to the children's village and that's when it really hit me that it was, who's gonna know that it was real? Huh? So when you so, when you was in the police car and they handcuffed you and everything, what was your mind set then? Like I know you had to be thinking about, you know your mother and the thing that she was gonna say and you know the thing that you was gonna have to go through with that process listening to her because, like you said, you know you was in the hold of self so many days, or whatever.

You didn't want to call her and hear her cry. Is that because, like when you were? Like I've never been to jail, you know, I've never experienced that. I went to jail for drinking and driving once before, but all I went is to the hold the sale. But as far as just being locked up and have to stay there for multiple days, I've never experienced that.

So is it the experience that you didn't want your mother because you would hear her cry, and it didn't make you emotional and in that state you don't want to be that way because in that you got a man up. It really Lost them for a second. You'd be back there. That really played a part in it too. Just every day I didn't want to hear her cry. When I heard her cry it broke me down. I didn't want to hear that.

I knew she was hurt it just it took a lot for me to call and every time I told George she knew I wasn't eating in there. So she, you got bad connections, folks but he'd be at it now. That's all good. There you go. I don't want me to be hurt and stuff. So she wanted me to hurt myself. So she wanted me to eat in there and dig. It was hurting here and her crying.

Yeah, man, you know I remember the day vividly myself. Man, you know as a father, you know as a dad, as a father, as you call me, pops. It hurt me, man. You know what I'm saying. It really did. I cried, man. I cried, I cried, I cried. I think I cried for like three days because, as a father and like I said, you know, I've never been in that situation but I'm not oblivious to life and I know how it is with people that do get caught up in the system like that, and I guess my biggest fear was you getting locked up for 20. How many years was they talking about giving you 20. For 20 years, man? You know, like you was 16 at the time and you know, you ain't even experienced life.

Yet you hadn't even experienced life. You hadn't even experienced your full potential of the things you was doing, because at that time you was playing football and you know, plus something. Yeah, actually, when I was in there, I didn't even know that I was facing 20 years. I was blind to all of it. I was just going court date by court date, you know my just and not going to be released here. He told me my first court date. Every told me I'm not going to release you, you're going to stay there, you're going to miss the holiday, you're going to stay through Thanksgiving Because I'm not getting you another court date until the 28th of November. Yeah, yeah, I remember that, because we was all on the phone call and we thought that he was going to let you Because you was in there for like what, two weeks before that, and we just knew. We was praying and hoping that he was going to let you out, man. But when he said that he was letting you out, what was it Right before? Chris Lewis, something like that. You're 16. Yeah, man, you know that was a hurting feeling. You know what I'm saying. Like, I know your mom's heart dropped through her stomach. My heart dropped. You know I was calling people that I can confide in, and you know, my pastor and a couple of my partners or whatever. But that was a hurting feeling, man. You know it was a hurting transition and so, like from that experience that you went through, now let's go to your court dates when you finally got out.

So what was the process of you staying out of there and not going back? So when I first got out, I was on house arrest. So I was on the ankle monitor. I had very strict restrictions. I couldn't be on social media, couldn't have access to the internet. I got to be in there for school, so I was really just looking day to day out of my mom's board. I just think to myself when I come home like man, what I didn't see in here. Next time I want to come back to like this real life, like people are getting beat on their face for real. They're fighting in here every day. I'm talking about they just sneaking, just fighting, jump, everything. But the fool. I ain't got a single meal the whole time I was in there. I was 28 pounds. My whole time I was in there. I didn't get a single meal For real. It was that devastating. He just a single meal.

So why in there? Like you say, you didn't have a notebook, you didn't have anything to write with. I think then they give you something to read and they give you a Bible or something to read or whatever. That's when I was in quarantine Now the quarantine, you couldn't have nothing. But once you got on the floor then I could get notebooks and pencils and all that stuff to start writing. So it got easier when I got off quarantine.

But still being in quarantine, but six days really was seven because I had to wake up. They don't count the weekends, so you got to wake the weekends on Monday. So I know we need to win that. So it's Thursday, friday and Saturday and Sunday. Don't count what you mean. It don't count. I mean Because nobody in the office on the weekends to run tests. So if they don't even count for your quarantine, so you got to do another two days and you'll count for them Now for real. Yeah, so you in your cell 24. You didn't sell 24 hours a day, it's you Talk to no other kids. You shot when you want straight to the game.

When you come back in your religion, you're overwars. I'm just thinking all day I'm looking up in a similar. I can't go to sleep this bright light beaming on me the whole time. It was bright lights is beam like the whole time. It's cold in there. What's it called? Yeah, I'm the damn, your suicide watch. So I got the style off with the two great blankets. Well, I got off that. You know, I got a little better today. See, I was trying to hurt myself and I just wouldn't try to eat the food. I mean they make it.

I started getting. I got cool the guards the best. I give me no extra blankets, but I was in there.

Good, sit back and relax. You're listening to the moneyway show.

So let me ask you a question. You say you was locked up 24 hours a day, why you was quarantined, and this was at the same time, the same process, when you first got in there. Okay, so I guess my question is with the situation that happened, right, and so that's one thing, the situation that happened, so you're feeling some type of way, because I know that, you know that you disappointed, you know, your mother, you disappointed your grandmother, me, you know. So, with that mad set and sitting there thinking about that and being isolated from everybody else, well, you can't really talk to nobody about what's going on and only thing you can do is speculate how people feel.

What was your mind said? What was you really thinking about when you was just isolated for those 48 hours? Well, it was longer than 48 hours, right, because you said we can then count, yeah, okay, so within that 72 hour time frame, or have a long. That is what was your mind said. What was you really thinking about, like, what was your end of most feelings when you was going through that Trying time right there? When I really first got in there, it really like I really was just thinking about, I really did this, like I know my mama mad.

I know that to hear her mouth.

I'm thinking when I first go home she's gonna be cussing me out of fun. I ain't thinking she's gonna be sad. I'm thinking I'm in the hot air right away. I think about your, like like dad, like what my brother gonna say, my dad, my grandma, I know my granny gonna be hurted because she wasn't in a million years like I do something like that. My grandma still tried to defend me when she found out about me. Hmm, it's really just like it hit different. So, but just think, like, how you disappointed everybody. And you know, like I know me, like I know me, you know I'm saying, like I know the type of person I am. I get kind of emotional on certain things, you know I'm saying, and I just know me.

Man, if I was in that situation, every time I would think about how I disappointed my mother you know I'm saying or how I disappointed my father, those that love me and those that believed in me. You know I would have been crying not only on the inside but on the outside. You know I'm saying, and that was the difference by I really I didn't cry for real, I just cried when I was off on my mom. It was like I did what I did. What I'm crying about, I got a. What I'm in here for Can't cry. You got to get on up to it. I mean you're not a no, go back, mm-hmm. What they often do is we did a day hoping I get out see my court dates. I gotta like somebody got a fight. You came just back away. You got to stand up, do what you gotta do. I'm just when I'm talking to my mom. That's when I'm breaking down, because Every time I know my mama talk, she ain't called how you doing it hurt me and it's like I'm here, her crown of all the work on the phone.

One time it really was. I ain't caught it. For a while I was calling my brother. She ain't no bowser, okay or not, so I wouldn't call her, but she ain't. I was talking to my brother, I'm talking to him. I'm straight. I couldn't call you cuz you wouldn't let me down. Very, just not talk to her. I was straight. They took me a while to, you know, talking to her crying cuz she finally stopped crying on the phone, but it just.

I ain't crying except when I was in the cell the door was just he just thinking I was doing my push ups, here you go, you're doing push ups, so why you in there? Was you thinking about anything as far as like, okay, okay, that's backtrack. So the first time that you heard that there was a possibility and it was a strong possibility because it was considered a terrorist act, right, I got an awesome part of terror. And so at this point, I think that it had happened in Detroit or in Michigan multiple times, because I think, if I'm going back a few years back, somebody actually killed some people at school, didn't they? Yeah, so so at this time it was heightened. You know what I'm saying and you know they was cracking down on these situations, because I think that, reading that article and going through that, I think that the parents got charged as well. Yeah, they're all facing these damn trials. So with that type of situation I mean, I know for me and I know your moms and Tori probably thought about it too at the time it's like when your child do something you know what I'm saying when your child does something, now they want to hold the parent accountable for what the child did, and so that was running through my mind, that was running through the minds of the people that I was talking to, that there's a possibility that the parents can be charged for what the child just went out and did. But one thing I knew I knew the child and how. I knew that you didn't hide no guns. You know what I'm saying Because when I was talking to my social worker and everything she said, she knew that my parents wouldn't be involved because there was no witness in the house. Yeah, and I had a lot of choice words. I can't say it on the podcast, but you know how I am. Just for the life of me, man, I was like your grandmama. You know what I'm saying.

And I said at this point, at this point, like you said, you know, you said something that was key. You did it. You're saying it was already done, they had already charged you, there was no need to cry about this and that I had to stand up and take it like a man. You know what I'm saying. I had to own up to my responsibilities, this and that, and so at this point, you know what I'm saying. It's like I was mad, I was upset, I was angry for what you had did, but at this point. It wasn't no point of condemning you. You see what I'm saying, it was already done and not wanting you to go to jail, not wanting you to spend half of your life behind bars, it wasn't no, hey man, why are you so stupid and why you do something like that, which you know, that's not get that twisted. Now.

I did think that it was very, very stupid, you know, and I think I told you that after you got out. But it wasn't no need to condemn you why you were in there? Because only thing that I could think about is to love. You see what I'm saying? Because I didn't want to see you in that situation. Your mama didn't want to see you in that situation, tory didn't want to see you in that situation, marcela didn't want to see you in that situation. Your grandmothers didn't want to see you in that situation. And so, with something like that happens, man, and something like that transpires, it don't only affect you. You see what I'm saying, it affects everybody. And so now let's get to this question. When you heard for the first time that it was a possibility that you Go do 20 years in jail, what was your thought process? I didn't know that. Well, oh, so you didn't hear that until you got out and was on house arrest. Yeah, okay.

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I had no clue that until I got home and I was talking to people on the phone and they sending me the post. That's a face of the 20 years. You know I'm still facing my chasing but I'm not on that. I know when I got out it was no possibility that I was going back. I knew that I was gonna be out because I felt what, anything I was gonna get a program I wasn't gonna do. 20 years just off the fact that all I was in there. My laws were straight. I had one problem I was in trouble.

Everything I have a upper level in there I was best of the best I'm. He wouldn't never let me out on house arrest. I left but he would have brought me back. I said that's why I felt I was doing good and when I was on house arrest I wasn't violating my house arrest, I was dropping clean. Every time I'm doing everything you tell me to do, following all my rules, my PO. When she say me dropping, she say drop being home. By the time to me be home. I'm not leaving. So I felt like I knew I wasn't gonna build, I wouldn't go back.

When I heard face of 20 years, it really was like that's really crazy. So if I really was getting a trouble in there, I really could be doing 20 years right now. I mean, I was doing 20 years, I probably wouldn't know what I said. Man, you know, 20 years is a long time to take off a young man's life. I thank God that the favor God was on your life, that, like you said, even without known the unknown, while you was in there, not knowing that you was possibly facing 21 years, but you stood up and you did whatever you had to do to get up out of that, not knowing that you would face 20 years. You see what I'm saying. My mama didn't even tell me that. She probably didn't tell me what I was facing. I just knew what I had to do because, talking to my little social worker in there, talking to the guard and stuff, I was in there with the guard. He did 20 years when he was 11 and just talked to him. He kept me real. He told me we'd chop him up daily when he was in there. Man, this ain't where you're supposed to be. I'm just talking to you now. This ain't the type of person you is. If a couple of the guards to this day, I probably can't say that out here Now don't say not that it incriminates you, but I get what you're saying, though I get that they really was cool Seeing where I was coming from in here and knew that wasn't who I was, or knew that you probably didn't do this or feel like that's how they were, like you did it, like I said you did it, but that wasn't your makeup.

You know what I'm saying. We all make mistakes in life. You see what I'm saying. I say this all the time. Some mistakes you can make, which you did right now you can come back from, okay, but then there are some mistakes that you made or that people made and they don't come back from. You feel what I'm saying Either you in jail for the rest of your life or you getting killed, or you ain't got killed in that mistake that you made. You feel me, so it ain't no coming back from that. Some people that make a mistake in the wrong place at the wrong time, they spend the rest of their life in jail.

Some people within the wrong place at the wrong time, or went out there to go do something to somebody else and got caught. They sell it, ain't no coming back from that, and so I hope that the lesson that you learned, that certain things, man, that if you keep on going down that road, you won't get the same results all the time.

And I'm glad I say this, I'm glad that situation happened. My mom and them. She say you don't know why, but I find every person that got a bump on my head to see where it really coming from, because I could have been who knows? I could have been gotten in trouble for something way worse than what I got in trouble for. I was really glad I put my head in that. Show Me like you got to change what you be doing. You can't be around this dad and third doing it, that being around getting in trouble. I had to really learn. But it's really life in there.

I'm on the floor and people got feelings, everybody in your family. I'm talking about attempted murder. You fight. I was there. Somebody fighting the temp that was on the test right now. He in the county. They transferred him out of the children's groups. He's in the county right now. I was there for people fighting real life medications. So so, like you say, it took God to take you through the fire and actually experience it and go through. I'm thinking about these Hebrew boys right now when they went through the fire, and the Bible say that that Jesus was in a fire with him, and so you said that it took God to take you through this situation in order for you to wake up and open your eyes before you had got caught up In another situation that you may not have got out of that what you said I was lucky to even catch a break with what I got.

I caught, oh yeah, you was very lucky. I had a scent probation, which is six months. I could have got tests of anything. Just being that wasn't who I was and doing what I was supposed to do and them seeing that that wasn't the person type of person I was, knowing it was a true mistake. That's why I got off the way I got off and I was blessed to get off that way because, like you said, 20 years I was facing, I could have gotten intensive probation for 20 years but just being off the way I was talking to them, they'd send me every day, my laws being good, the guards telling them I ain't seen, and not only that, the referee that you had, you know, because I was on all those calls along with your mother and Tori here.

He showed a lot of compassion to you know, and it was crazy because one of the guards in the tube she said he don't play around with those build my social worker. She said he doesn't play around with those cases either. So she said, for what I got and how he dealt with those cases, that really was great. Oh yeah, because he didn't see people get a book from him with that type of case. Yeah, I mean, the first time that we was on the call and he was talking I was like, hmm, I called Tori. After we got the phone I was like man, that don't look good, it don't sound good.

But then you doing whatever you were supposed to be doing in there, your social worker going back giving a good report, and his stance started changing something. You know what I'm saying. It started changing and, like he said the last time, oh, that January, february, the last action case that you had that we had to get on the phone or whatever, and he said it was the letter that your mother sent him. That really you know what I'm saying that really touched him because he said he uses that letter to this day as a model letter to send the other people and to show other people that you know how hard felt that that letter was that he received from her. That's all you know. Even with that man. It was a support system that he saw that you had. And, like you say, man, just continue from this day forward, man, to keep thanking God for what he did for you. You know what I'm saying and learn a lesson from it and just go out there, man, and be the best that you can be and do all that God has for you to do. Man, live your life the way that is supposed to be lived. Man, I'm just going to leave it like that. Got anything else you want to say, anything else you want to tell any young folks, any older folks that have dealt with some things like this, any fine words you'd like to give and the young folks? Jail ain't the place you want to go, man. It ain't fine here. It's not. And I had to go to jail for my probation to the Oakland, to the actual jail, one of the inmates.

I seen him throw drawers in one of the people's face. I was on the tour with it's not no game, I was real. I would do every floor in there. 11 man sales, 10 man sales. You got 10 people in the sales. He's number four and one sale. So you get beat up in the sale. You might die here because the guard ain't gonna be here in time. So you got 10 people in one sale. You say People in one sale and when you say drawers during his face, was it doodle drawers or just it's dirty drawers? Because he told me oh, I had a doodle in there. I was chewing some gum, excuse my language. He said stop chewing that. Good for me, you're my bitch. I kept chewing my good, I might go stop because you told me to. But if it was a doodle, one of his bunnies, it was a doodle. And they told me.

He said I want him Now the doodle they told me wash my drawers, do them in his face, do the bunnies For real. He's beating this sale. He might not make it out alive.

10 people in one sale, the guard ain't gonna be here in time, yeah. So I hope you never had to go through that again. I'm not saying that in life, that you know we don't make mistakes, things gonna happen, but I just hope that you don't make a mistake like that no more. But I'd like to thank you for coming on the Money Waste Show, man, and now telling us your experience and how it is man and the things that you went through. I think that it took a lot of courage to get on a podcast and tell the whole world, tell the masses, how you felt and you know what I'm saying the things that you experienced, the things that you saw, and to say it so fluently and so accurately as you did, man. I really appreciate that, man. I love you so much. Love you too, pup. All right, thank you. This has been the Money Waste Show. This is your boy, cj. Money Waste, ah-ha, let's see.