by Shorty Rossi
Mom said she blamed herself. She was convinced that if she’d stopped me from running away, none of this would have happened. I had to tell her, “Do you know what I was doing in junior high? I was smoking cigars. I was smoking marijuana. I was drinking. I lost my virginity. You never knew none of that. So how can you blame yourself when you didn’t know what your kids were doing?” She cried and said, “I should have known.” There was no way she could have known. I had lied to her face every single day. I even lied about prom night. I went and partied in South Central L.A. instead. Yeah, she could have paid better attention to what I was doing, but I was a liar, plain and simple. I’d gotten myself into this mess. I had no one to blame but me.
They shipped me to Men’s Central Jail, or what we called County. County was a holding pen for all the guys standing trial or awaiting sentencing. The biggest jail in the world, there were thousands of guys there—all of us housed in downtown L.A. near Union Station. They put me in the old Hall of Justice ’cause they didn’t know what to do with me. They were worried I might get hurt ’cause of my size and my gang affiliation as a Blood. They took me to the Young Tank, where they held the kids. A few days later, they transferred me back to Men’s Central. The Sheriff’s Department told the deputies, “Put the little fuck in the gang tank.” I remember hearing the deputy say, “He’s gonna get killed. He’s gonna get hurt. Something bad could happen to him.” But they moved me anyway. They walked me into 4300, the gang module, and pointed me toward the catwalk.
The gang modules were separated from the main population. Every module had a number: 4200 was general population, 4300 was the Blood tank, 4400 was another general population module, and 4600 was the Ding tank. The Ding tank was the 5150s, the guys that had mental problems. (As in, “Ding, ding, ding. Anybody in there?”) None of them were “in there” if you know what I mean. Modules 4700 and 4800 were the Crip modules. Every module had a chow hall on one end, and though they kept us separated as best they could, there was always a chance of being jumped if you were being transported to another area or going to the roof. The roof was the play yard. The only time you saw the sun.
Being put in a gang module with your crew was the same as protective custody. You could be protected by your own people. If someone claimed to be in a gang, but they actually weren’t, they’d throw them in the gang module and let the inmates take care of them. They’d get the shit beat out of them, royally. Or they’d be stabbed to death.
There were two levels with four different tiers: A, B, C, and D—or April, Baker, Charlie, and Denver. I was pointed toward the April row, where they housed the Bloods together. There were thirty deputies just waiting for a melee. But as I walked to the April row, I ran into a bunch of friends. Guys were reaching out from behind their cells and shaking my hand. “What the hell are you doing here, Shorty?” That was a fucking peach. I was like the mayor of April row.
The watch commander, a captain, called back to me: “I got five hundred black guys in there, and a little white midget knows half my goddamn population? Who are you?” I said, “I’m nobody.” He stared at me. “Oh no, you’re somebody.” He kept looking me over. “We thought you’d be attacked.” I called him on it. “If you thought I’d be hurt, why’d you walk me down there?” He said, “We don’t like niggers and we don’t like people who like niggers.” He pushed me back toward my cell. “You ain’t gonna make it one week in here.”
Turns out my cellie was Big Will, a guy I grew up with at Nickerson. Big Will schooled me on the system. He told me who everyone was, who to stay away from, what was going on in terms of the racial tensions. He told me about “good time,” how California had a policy that let prisoners cut their sentences in half—serve a day, get a day off—if they did “good time,” meaning they didn’t fight, took a class, behaved themselves. Every prisoner knew about the day-for-day policy. It was a source of hope.
But more than that, Big Will made sure I knew about the animosity between the inmates and the corrections officers and staff. A lot of them were crooked. A lot of them would take you into a corner and beat you with a fucking flashlight. They called it flashlight therapy. There were riots over our treatment, and at one point, they stuck four hundred inmates into the showers, butt-ass naked, ’cause some deputy lost his keys and they were convinced someone was gonna break out of jail.
I’d never experienced so much racism in my life until I went to County. It was total corruption. Total racism. The corrections officers and the deputy sheriffs treated me like shit ’cause I was with a black gang. It didn’t help that I was an asshole. I was so fucking rebellious. I was constantly getting flashlight therapy. There were cells that were broken or wider than usual and I could squeeze out and visit my friends. I got caught as I was trying to climb over a tier. It was two in the morning. They knotted me up, meaning they beat my head with flashlights, giving me knots all over my skull. They threw me in the hole. That was just hell. I was more scared of getting set up and killed by the deputies than by the inmates.
I entered Men’s Central on January 8, 1988, and I was there until August of 1989, fighting my case in trial. It would turn out to be the hardest place I ever did time.
For my first trial, they assigned me a dingbat lawyer who was a disaster waiting to happen. The trial ended in a mistrial on a technicality, mostly ’cause of her incompetence. Then I was assigned Carol Telfer as my lawyer. She was behind me one hundred percent. The second trial resulted in a hung jury, so they brought me back for a third trial. For that trial, they hired a special gang prosecutor, Kevin McCormick, a super-smart son of a bitch. I didn’t like the guy, ’cause he was prosecuting me at the time, but I had to admit, he was good at his job and he wasn’t an asshole.
Going to trial was one of the worst experiences of my life. Not ’cause of the trial itself, but ’cause of the logistics of getting to court every day. Pretrial proceedings could take up to two or three months. These were just the initial hearings and jury selection and setting dates or requests for delays. Every morning that I had to be in court, they’d wake me up at four o’clock in the morning to eat breakfast. The deputies would march me downstairs, where up to five thousand inmates would be heading to court. They’d sort us by gangs and put us on buses.
Once we got to the courthouse, they’d sort us again, putting the gangbangers in separate holding tanks. And then … we’d sit there for hours. Finally, when it was your turn to appear before the judge, they’d walk you in and then the damn judge would ask for an extension for another day. That’s it. Then they’d march you back out. Stick you back in the holding tank and you’d sit and wait for hours for some other corrections officer to come pick you up. Then back on the buses, back to County, where you’d sit in another holding tank until they could get you back to your cell. By the time you got back to your bed, it was eleven or twelve o’clock at night. Next day, you’d start the whole process over again at four o’clock in the morning.
This went on over and over and over again. Carol used to get so angry with me ’cause I’d fall asleep in front of the jury. I couldn’t help it. I was barely getting four hours of sleep a night for months on end. I couldn’t think in a straight line. I was so desperate to be done with the trial process, I told Carol just to take a deal so I wouldn’t have to go through the daily grind anymore. She didn’t listen to me.
With each new trial, charges were dropped. The conspiracy charges and accessory charges fell away ’cause I could prove I was at work during those hours. But the attempted-murder charge against the innocent bystander was still standing. Out of the five of us that were arrested that night, I was the only one who faced a jury. Dante and Lewis ratted against me. They took deals to save their own asses. When they put T.J. and Bernard on the stand, they had nothing to say. Since they were juveniles, so they got a lot less time. As for the two Crips that were shot, they had, of course, not pressed charges against me, ’cause they had no intention of spending any more time in a courthouse, or with cops, than nece
ssary. The only guy that showed up every day was the bystander. He was there for every session. He’d survived, but he had to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. He wanted justice and I was the only one on trial.
Dante portrayed me as the boss. He gave the jury the impression that I’d told him to rob the bystander and had masterminded the shoot-out. Dante was over six feet tall and solid as a rock. Like I could force him to do anything. When they brought Dante into County, he said he was a Blood. But Dante wasn’t actually a Blood. He ran with guys who were Bloods, but he’d just ratted on me in court, and word spread fast. When the deputies walked him into the Blood module, he got his ass beat. They had to get him out of there and put him back into “gen pop,” general population.
Then the Crips devised a plan to get back at Dante for shooting at their guys. They convinced him to become a Crip, since the Bloods wanted nothing to do with him. They pretended to convert him, and he even got Crip tattoos on his arms. Once the deputies moved him into the Crip module, they ripped him apart. Dante showed up in court and accused me of putting a hit out on him. He thought I had something to do with it, but I didn’t. I didn’t have to say a word. Dante had dug his own grave.
His accusation alone made things harder on me in the eyes of the jury. I kept hoping they’d offer me a deal, but the prosecutor came back with outrageous numbers: forty years to life, thirty-five years to life. Then to make matters worse, I was accused of taking part in a foiled escape attempt.
We were being bused back to County on these really old, big, long yellow school buses that were fortified and converted for prisoner transport. Normally, I was seated up front, in the cages with Bloods, but for some reason, the deputies sat me in the back with the Mexican gangs. I was actually handcuffed to two Mexicans instead of to Bloods. During the ride, the Mexican gang started ripping out the backseat. I saw it happening, but none of the deputies up front noticed. Eventually, they ripped a hole big enough to bust out of the back of the bus. We were locked together in threes, so the three guys that had been ripping all disappeared out the hole. Then one of the guys chained to me decided to make a break for it. For a split second, I thought about it, but I knew it would only make matters worse. If the third guy chained to us had decided to bolt, I’d have had no choice. I couldn’t hold back two grown men, but thankfully, he didn’t bolt. He stayed put, so our handcuffed third ended up halfway into the hole, unable to move. As soon as the escapees busted out of the back of the bus, there was a cop car behind them. The bus swerved over to the curb and cops swarmed in. They saw the guy connected to me halfway down the hole, and they charged us all with attempted escape.
They took me out of the gang module and put me in the high-security row with Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker murderer, and Todd Bridges, who played Willis on Diff’rent Strokes. Ramirez was there ’cause he was a scary mother. Bridges was there ’cause celebrities are very rarely mainstreamed into gen pop. It’s too dangerous for them. Todd Bridges was the biggest crybaby. He’d purposefully plug up his toilet and flood out the tier. It was hard for him, very hard for him, to be in jail.
Even though the gangbanger testified that I wouldn’t jump out of the bus with him, I became known as an escape artist. From that point on, I had to wear handcuffs with chains around my waist, hanging down to my ankles, and chains around my ankles. ’cause I was “pint-sized,” the deputies were afraid I could “fit into anything,” so they decided to keep me in a one-man cell for twenty-three hours a day for the next six months of my trial. Being in solitary for those six months made everything even harder. I had to get up earlier for trial and ’cause I was now labeled a “high-security risk,” I had to be put in a cage by myself on the bus. With those chains around my ankles, it was hard for me even to get on the bus. I’d need a little bounce to hop up, or some guy would have to lift me. If an inmate lifted me up, it was better. The deputies would always make a joke out of it and piss me off.
Being on the high-security tier, I spent a lot more time alone, and had a lot less time outside my cell. It was depressing and a mind game. I had to find some way to occupy my thoughts. I started reading more and got a copy of Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal. Trump talked a lot about using negativity to motivate himself. I wondered if there was a way to use my surroundings, dismal as they were, and make them into a positive, motivating force for myself. I liked that Trump had an ego. He didn’t mince words, and he wrote with such authority that I couldn’t help but be impressed by him. He was bigger than life. He was a character. I could relate. I wanted to meet him and pick his brain.
His life was exactly the life I had dreamed for myself when I was a kid, selling mice to the pet stores and dressing up like J.R. for Halloween. The opening chapter of his book walked me through a typical week in the life of a mogul, and all the important people he’d talk with or meet. I could picture that life for myself. I wanted it. I memorized the eleven steps for success he outlined, from Thinking Big to Maximizing Options to Fighting Back to Delivering the Goods. His book started to feel like my bible.
I just wanted the third trial to be over and done with so I could get out of County and move on. Janet, Mama Myrt, and Cerisse attended most of the trials. It was hard to see all of them crying. Mom and Linda came once or twice, but Dad never showed his face. I’d have pleaded guilty to the accidental shooting of the bystander, but they wouldn’t drop the other charges, and the prosecution was going full-court press. Carol told me if I pled guilty, they’d throw the maximum time at me and that letting a jury decide my fate was my best shot at going home before I was ninety. Carol didn’t want me to testify in my own defense, but I wanted to clear my name about the things I hadn’t done. I was being accused of a lot more than what actually happened on that night.
I got on the stand and Kevin McCormick, the prosecutor, asked me point-blank, “Did you ever gangbang?” I said, “No.” Then he said, “Can you explain these photos?” He projected photos of me, in County with my homies, all of them gangbangers, all of us wearing our County blues and red bandanas, throwing up gang signs. He was good, that guy. I had to hand it to him.
The other prisoners told me, “If the jury comes back quick from deliberations, you’re screwed. If they take several days, it might go to a hung jury” (which happened during my second trial), “and if they take a day or two, you’ve got a chance of an acquittal.” My third jury went out and took forever. For four days, I sat in the holding tank for nine hours while they deliberated, had some lunch, and deliberated some more. There were so many charges still pending against me for the jury to consider. There were still twenty-one gun charges alone, not to mention the attempted-murder, robbery, and conspiracy charge for the shooting of the bystander. In total, I was facing life in prison.
When the jury came back, they started reading their decision. I was found guilty of attempted murder and guilty of the attempted robbery. I was found guilty on a bunch of the gun allegations. But I was found not guilty of conspiracy and that was the big one. That charge came with an automatic twenty-five-years-to-life sentence. I was so relieved, I almost passed out. The bailiff came over and helped me sit down in my shackles. He heard me say, “Oh, thank God. I’m actually going home now.” He thought I was crazy. He corrected me, “You’re not going home today, sir.” I looked up at him. “Yeah, but someday, I get to go home. No life sentence. No life.” In some weird way, I was happy. When I got back to my cell, the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, congratulated me. “You were convicted, but you didn’t get life.”
Four weeks later, I took one last ride to the courthouse. The sentence hearing lasted six hours and I was sentenced to twenty years, eight months. That sounded pretty bad until I started doing the math in my head. I remembered Big Will’s lesson about doing good time. I realized I’d be out in half that time. Actually, less than half. I’d already been in prison for nearly two years by the time my third trial was over. With the California Department of Corrections policy of one day off for one day served
, I could be out in eight years or less.
As I was doing my mental calculations, I was shocked to hear Kevin McCormick actually advocate for me during sentencing. He stood up before the judge and said, “Mr. Rossi has a chance to correct his problems and learn from his mistakes. It’s our recommendation he be housed in the California Youth Authority.” I couldn’t believe it. This guy, the guy who prosecuted me, was trying to help me out. I stared at him in awe and wondered why in the hell he’d just done that.
The judge agreed with him, and they gave me a second chance. Even though I was technically a California Department of Corrections commitment, they were gonna ship me to the California Youth Authority. The judge made it clear: “If you mess up one time, we send you straight to CDC. Got it?” I nodded. Got it.
4
Cat Man
hey shipped me to DeWitt Nelson in Stockton, California. The facility was named after a forestry official, and part of its rehabilitation programs included training juveniles to handle flooding in the San Joaquin Valley or to fight forest fires in the Sierras. All the Youth Authority lockups offered vocational training and psychological counseling services. Their mission was to reform kids, not just imprison them. We weren’t even called inmates. We were called wards, and we were even allowed to wear our own clothes on the grounds.
There were four juvenile prisons near Stockton at that time. Karl Holton and O.H. Close were for high school–aged kids. DeWitt Nelson was for the college-aged kids, eighteen to twenty-five, and then there was N.A. Chaderjian, which was a max-security youth prison for the serious fuck-ups. Those were the violent kids that had to be isolated. To get sent to Chad, you had to stab somebody or rape somebody. You had to have mental problems, and if you screwed up too many times at any of the other three facilities, they’d send you to Chad.