In The Deep: Stories That Shape U

This is In the Deep Stories That Shape Us. Hey, my name is Kevis and I was really scared to get tested for HIV, but I knew I had to do it. So I found out my status and you know what, I'll also learn from a doctor that HIV is not a death sense, their medications available to treat HIV and options to prevent it. So my advice if you haven't done so, get tested, know your status. I'm glad I do, and press play on What's next. Learn

more at HIV test now dot com. Learning to love ourselves and our messy and complicated truth is hard enough, but what happens when you have that feeling of otherness just hanging over your head where you don't feel understood even within your own tribe. How do you confidently grow into your own skin, or maybe even grow out of it when the road to acceptance and healing is so rough and bumping. Welcome back to in the deep stories

that shape us. I'm your host, Zach Stafford. If you've been following us since day one, you're familiar with the stories of hardship. Our guests have shared those struggles of identity, discrimination, or health, and how these people have managed to move forward despite their circumstances. And if you're new, well check those stories out. You won't regret it. We're going to continue listening to these stories from black and LATINX people, hoping to gain clarity and get closer, even if just

a little, to a road of healing and understanding. I think by now all of us have had some understanding that many black people living in America, especially black men, have that other type of talk with our family, the one that teaches you to keep your hands on the wheel or respond with yes sir no sir answers when

interacting with police. And regardless of how much you prep in advance, no matter how many different scenarios you recreate in your head, can a person really be fully prepared for those human reactions, those feelings of anxiety, or that fight or fight feeling that can take over in times of danger. As a black man myself, I've had my

own experiences with the police throughout my life. I've had the cops who follow you around town, hoping you miss one stop sign, do one thing they can deem suspicious. And as a journalist, I've dedicated most of my life to exploring how these cops misuse their power towards people that look like me all around this country, much of

which has been inspired by my own personal experiences. But through all of these years and countless stories, I have yet to ever sit down and have the conversation you're about to hear today, a conversation with a man who was pulled over, was shot by the police five times, and became paralyzed at the age of nineteen, and today is working to not defund the police, but rather change

them from within. Leon Ford's powerful story brings up so many questions for me personally and challenges me even more because even more than his body of work, Leon's journey begs the question can you truly heal and continue to help others? All while facing your inner panes and stigmas that have plagued you in your community for a long time, and even more powerful, can you take this healing and turn the people that have wronged you, those that have

hurt you, into a sort of ally for change. So I am from the east side of Pittsburgh in a neighborhood called Garfield. It's like a small town, you know, we're all one degree of separation away. And so I was fortunate enough to build relationships with, you know, all of my different relatives all throughout Pittsburgh. I was a kid that always wanted to be outside. They used to call me professor because I was also I was also the kid that could have a full conversation with any adult.

I remember just being at the table while my grandmother and aunts and uncles were playing spades. The games used to be rowdy, but there was like a lot of love. Whereas, like, you know, towards the corner, my cousins would be shooting dice and my grandmother would say, stay away from the dice game because you know, you just never know, like somebody's gonna fight or something, you know what I mean. I played football growing up. I didn't love it as much as my son loves it. I have a nine

year old son and he loves football. I mean, any chance that I, like skip football practice, I was definitely doing that. What were you doing when you skip football practice? Just hanging out with friends, right, and dirt bikes and just hanging out. Would you say, this time of your life, you're pretty happy with everyone and everything going on? Absolutely happy.

I was spoiled. So when I was five or six years old, my dad he was indicted by the FBI for conspiracy to sell drugs and he actually served maybe fourteen years in federal prison. Yeah, so that was my first huge shift in my life. Where my dad was a very active father, you know, supported the little league football teams and things, and then you know he was

snatched away. Something that really stands out in Leon's story, it's just this idea of manhood, a fatherhood, because on the one hand he has his father, his own personal superhero, but on the other he has the world's opinion of his character. It's almost like living in between two worlds. One where his father is very present, a great man, friend, a great leader even, and another where he's getting hurt, stabbed, shot, or even arrested. I can relate to that feeling because

my dad was also hurt like Leon's. He was even indicted at one point two, and there's feelings of anxiety, that feeling of am I next are incredibly difficult to shake. So I felt like I lived in two worlds. In one world, I always was like a star student, and the teachers treated me really well because they knew that my parents were engaged. And then once my dad was indicted,

they kind of looked at me like differently. Yeah, like I was a problem child, you know, like I had done something wrong, and my relationships with school changed because of that. I instantly felt my blockness, right, I felt my privilege kind of be stripped away, because I do feel like I was privileged. My father was very well respected, and there was like this deep reverence for him as a person because he's just a stand up guy. You know,

he's a person who keeps his word. He took care of so many people, from you know, saving homes from foreclosure, to paying taxes, to supporting youth sports and just you know, being someone that people in the community felt they could lean on. But Dad has a huge heart. So one world, I'm revered even though my dad went to prison and people were like treating me well and trying to look out for me since my dad was gone. On the other side, you know, these predominantly white teachers were treated

me like I was a criminal. So that was very confusing, and I was struggling with why. You know, five and six years old, I didn't have the language to say, maybe because I'm blocking and they think my dad's a criminal, and so they think I'm going to become a criminal, or you know, I don't know the reason, but I certainly felt it. I felt the shift. I still have the first letter that my dad wrote me when he went to prison. He basically said that I'm not to

blame for him going to prison. My mom wasn't to blame. It was his fault, the choices that he made. He broke down the importance of rules, how rules and laws are similar, how all laws and rules aren't right, but until we change them, we have to follow them right in a way, and he said, you know, wrote about how he wanted me to, you know, listen to my mom follow her rules, and he wanted me to become

the best part of him, not the worst part. And you know, in reading this letter and being so close to my father, I thought about the possibilities of me being incarcerated one day, and that certainly frightened me. So even now I go to therapy and I'm a huge mental health advocate. There's certain things that I experienced from my father that made me who I am. But I won't necessarily do it to my son or say those things to my son, right, So I appreciate them, and

I appreciate my father for him doing his best. Just because I've been exposed to a different way of engaging with trauma and healing doesn't negate the lessons that he learned throughout his life. And so I'm like moving forward, but I'm also acknowledging the past, and you know, I'm acknowledging the lessons from my father and my grandfather, even those lessons that society today may say are very harsh, which is complicated. You know, what you're saying takes me

back to something my dad said to me. He said, I want you to be better than me, and what that requires of you is to be different than me and to deal with things different than me. So I'm still be me and treat you how I know how to treat you, but do not be me. Be different, because you will be better. So here's Leon existing, living his life, listening to his father's advice be different. But then on a regular Sunday morning, he gets a call from one of his cousins to hang out. Something tells

him to stay, but he decides to go anyway. Leon and his cousins are really into fitness. They work out all the time. They're so close. They boxed together and even have a pact not to do drugs. But on this day, his cousin is hanging out with a girl and Leon gets a whiff of weed. His cousin has broken the pact. They all decide to go to their grandma's house, but Leon goes alone in his car. I got in my car and drove off. I drove to

the corner to stop saying made a laugh. And so I was driving the correct way down on one way street. And then I saw a police cruiser coming toward me the wrong way with no lights on, just illegally driving down the street. And so when we passed each other, I had to like move over a little bit, and I locked eyes with those police officers and instantly knew that they were going to pull me over. I get asked this question often, like how did you know? It's

just an instinct. It's just hard to explain to people who have never had that experience what that is like. And so I get to the next stop. Sound, made a left, drove about a block, made a right over a bridge. As I'm driving over the bridge, guys, so I see behind me police cruiser and they are speeding. Through investigations, we know that they were driving about ninety miles an hour trying to catch up to me. They call it fishing. That's the term that they use. Say

they were definitely fishing. And so this police cruiser speeding behind me, I knew they were going to pull me over, and so you know, I began to prepare. I mean, I didn't have my seatbelt on, so I put my seatbelt on, you know those types of things, right, I want. They put their lights on and out immediately pulled over.

I used to keep my driver's license and registration in a little zip block bag, so I got that for them, and the officer immediately like just came to the window and just snatched my license and he's you know where you going? Up talking I just going to my grandmother's house and eggs him that I do anything wrong, and he said, I ran to stop sign. He went back to the cruiser to run my name. Everything came back Claire. The car was registered to me. But then he decided

to type in l Ford. So you can imagine on their system typing l Ford every name from Linda, Larry, any name or social to al that's going to pop up. And so he just basically decided to pick lamont Ford. I get frustrated a lot with this because the media, they would say, oh, they thought he was a gang member, or they thought he was a criminal, and he wasn't this criminal he was. He wasn't this game. He wasn't

this bad person who they thought he was. The reality is that lamont Ford didn't even have an active warrant that I was shot. Yeah, and so like for the record, he didn't have an active war it. So even if it was even if I was lamont Ford, lamont Ford wouldn't have deserved what happened to me. The idea of justice in Leon's story is so complicated because even if you think, well, damn, he shouldn't have driven off and

stayed and complied. This idea of being punished for having a human reaction feeling scared, feeling worried, feeling defenseless, isn't usually a means for such a drastic punishment. I've seen this time and time again in my own career, especially when I covered police in these incidents. At times, cops play the parts of both juror and prosecutor, tipping the scales to their favor and hopes of gaining a couple more informants for their needs. Going back to Leon for

a second, think about it. He's nineteen. The police are confusing him for another person, lamont Ford. He's scared, and no matter how much he pleads, they are not taking no for an answer. It's his word against authorities. At that point, I was terrified. You know, nineteen years old, gave my driver's license, registration and car insurance. These officers now we're telling me, well, how about you get out of your car and come to our car. I look

at this photo of lamart Ford. I never heard anything like that before, So I told Sam, I don't need to know what lamant for looks like as saying, we'll get your block ass out of the car before we pull you out. It was that moment where I kind of thought, well, I'm not getting out of this carca. I felt safe inside of the car, and one of the officers reached in through the window and unlocked the door. With the door two officers both grabbed me and tried

to yank me out the car. So when I put the car and drive, the officer on the passenger side immediately jumped inside of the vehicle and within a half a second begin firing shots point blank range. And I was shot once in my neck, twice in my chest, once in my arm, and once in my hip. One of the bullets that went through my chest is the bullet that paralyzed me. Wow, you said that you felt safer in your car, you know, and I'm sure you grew up knowing that police were the s aggressive in

your neighborhoods. What do you think was in you that day that said I better hit the gas to the pedal, Because you know that something When I talk to white people, especially and they look at these reports, they'll say, well, you shouldn't have driven off, you should have stayed, you should have just listened. But it sounds like everything in your body was saying, get out as fast as you can. And the fact here is that you were right, you were in danger. You did get shot. But why do

you think your body said try to get out? In that moment? I did not feel safe around these police officers and they weren't taking no for an answer, and I felt like they were going to harm me. And so, you know, I thought my best bet was to drive off. My parents told me, you know, don't drive with your hood on, don't have friends in the back seat, don't blast music. Right, So my parents gave me information. However, I didn't have the language to say, hey, I don't

feel safe. I would like for a supervisor to come to the sea. Now. I don't know if that would have changed anything. However, I feel like it's a duty of mine to equip young people and people in community in general with the language to protect them, to potentially prevent them from experiencing what I experienced. And even with those words of caution in his head from his parents, Leon woke up in the ICU. He wakes up to a police officer in the room without his family. Confused.

I remember there was a suction tube that I would use to get out of the saliva out of my mouth because of the tubes, and I was hooked up to all these you know, i VS and things, and I accidentally dropped the suction my mouth. You know, it was full of saliva and I'm like trying to spit it out, but I began to choke. And as I was choking, you know, I was banging the bed to get the police officers attention, and he turned the TV up. Wow.

As I was choking in the machines are going off, and then you know, nurses ran into the room and they, you know, they got the saliva out of my mouth. They were so upset with this police officer, but they too felt powerless. But it was just like man, I had so much fear and anger that began to crystallize into hatred. I was shockled to the bed even though they knew I was paralyzed. I was arraigned from my

hospital bed. Wow, because I was charged, and I couldn't see my family for almost two weeks and I didn't even know why. They actually had to hire an attorney to figure out a way to see me. I was devastated. When my family came to visit me, I was I was so happy man, and I would just remember their sadness. They're worried, and just like my dad when he was shot. You know, I was in the hospital bed saying I'm okay, I'm good, even though on the inside I wasn't. The mental, emotional,

and even physical pain it was unbearable, you know. I remember hitting the button repeatedly to take morphing, to get them to come just knock me out. I just wanted to sleep, and so when I would wake up, I would be out for a while and it felt like a dream, and then I would soon be knocked out

again by the morphine. I think most people would have grown resentful or maybe just given up on life after something so traumatizing, But Leon's journey never ended with this tragic day, and though he was left with conflicting emotions at times, he quickly realized that if he wanted to heal, truly heal, he'd have to open himself up to things he never even imagined, and with people he never thought would be willing to lend a hand. And this is

something we will cover in Part two. Because Leon's journey is as complex and beautiful as it is powerful, and proves how healing yourself can sometimes come by lifting others up along the way. Hi, my name is Ramon and I was really scared to get tested for HIV, but I knew I had to do it. So I've found out my status and you know what, I also learned from a doctor that HIV is not a death sentence. There are medications available to treat HIV and options to

prevent it. So my advice if you haven't done so, get tested, know your status, and press play on what's next. Learn more at HIV test now dot com