Original subtitles

This was my everyday life.

You're just doing what you have to do to survive.

I've agreed to set up a corrupt cop.

I'm afraid for my life and my family's life.

It's like kill or be killed.

I've made a deal with the devil and it was time to pay the dues.

Early 2000s, I was a young kid in Baltimore, 15 years old.

It was a really tough place to grow up.

My neighborhood, it was a place of few options of what you can be and what you

can do with your life.

Very low education, very low incomes.

I always dreamt about life outside of the projects and, you know, what it

be like not having to hit gunshots at night.

On a daily basis, you would see massive, massive amounts of drug activity.

Everywhere you look, it's the drug trade.

Baltimore is nothing but a big drug trade.

My mom, you know, she was a drug addict.

And my dad, he spent maybe 60, 70 % of his life in jail.

Not having even one of my parents kind of just made me feel alone a lot.

So I live with my grandmother.

You know,

she gave me nourishment. She gave me value. She just gave me all the

foundations.

My grandmother was the person that always would tell me that I should go

I always wanted to make my grandmother proud.

But my grandmother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

It spread through our whole body.

So I knew she wasn't going to be around forever.

I just felt really low at that point.

And I just hated not having all the money I needed to help myself, my

grandmother.

I began to start feeling a feeling of hopelessness, you know, like no matter

what I do, it's never going to be good enough. No matter how hard I try, you

know, I'm stuck here.

So I started to lose faith in myself and everything.

When you're born into poverty, a lot of the kids of my age, it's just one road

to go down, and that's into the drug trade.

But I knew that my grandma, she just always wanted me to stay as far away

it as possible. As far away from drugs, that life is possible.

Mom, it's me.

Eventually... Mom!

It happened.

What are you watching now?

I just gave her a kiss, and she felt like ice.

She was gone.

After my grandmother died, that was my rock. That was my foundation, you know.

So once you lose your foundation,

It's like a house. What are you standing on? It's nothing.

I just remember feeling like completely powerless, you know, completely alone.

But things were about to go from bad to worse.

I was pulled over by some cops.

One of them asked me, you know, he said, where's your black ass going?

I said, sir, I'm just, you know, going home.

And he told me to get up against the wall.

Don't move your hands on me, man.

Come on, you know the score.

We'll go home.

You know, we all go home in a minute.

One's holding my head in the brick. The other one's kind of got me, an arm in my

back.

And dad laughing at me.

When they get in their car, I was just standing there.

I just let the devil in, and I let him take control of the wheel at that point.

You know, I just said, life, you know, everybody.

At this point, I don't have anything to live for. My why is in the grave.

You know, she's been tooken from me. So this hurt and pain that I feel, I'm

going to exact it upon the world.

I didn't have a positive role model, so I didn't stand a chance on avoiding the

drug world at that point.

So I got one of my... close friends to make the introduction to the local

dealers.

They explained I was to keep a dollar off everyone I sold, which equated to me

keeping $50.

Me being a kid at the time, $50 is like a million dollars. So I'm like, okay,

totally. That was like the taste of blood for a vampire.

So over the next couple of years, I began selling drugs relentlessly.

Day, night, 24 -7, 365.

I lost all morals and values, and

I was just completely blinded to right or wrong.

My grandmother would have been totally disappointed in me.

That was exactly what she didn't want for me.

But I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

My life was going to get a hell of a lot more dangerous.

So one night, I'm just about finished, you know, selling all the drugs that

and I was just walking home.

There were two cops that patrolled the neighborhood regularly named Detective

King and Detective Murray.

They were kind of like narco cops.

They had a big reputation.

When they came, you knew that they weren't going to stop until they got

they was looking for.

I just remember being scared out of my mind like a guy's a police.

And then right then and there.

Within 30 seconds, he shows me a bag of heroin and asks me, you know, what was

this?

At this point now, I know I'm completely.

I just remember thinking, you know, am I finally going to jail for the first

time? You know, like, fear the unknown.

We pull over at a pretty abandoned part of that neighborhood.

So I know something's not right.

Detective King says to me that he's very impressed by the way I carry myself.

I like the way you conduct your business.

At this point, I'm like, what is going on, you know?

I realized they had probably been watching me selling the drugs, and

they were targeting me.

But I had no idea why.

That's when he told me, you're going to work with us now, you hear me?

You think?

They tell me step out the car.

As soon as he popped the trunk, I'm looking at tens of thousands of dollars

worth of weed.

Detective King wanted me to sell the weed and give him a profit off of it.

You know, I was starting to drive home how corrupt these officers were.

I realized that the only difference between me and him is that he's a drug

dealer with a badge and I'm a drug dealer.

He says, if you don't do what I ask, there will be consequences.

You know, you're going to jail.

Me and him both knew that I had no choice but to play ball.

I just tell him, I'll do it.

They became the master, and I became the puppet.

At that moment I realized that my life was about to be turned upside down.

I'm back on the streets the next day.

I've agreed to sell drugs for a corrupt cop.

I don't know what I've got myself into. I'm totally over my head.

I'm pretty recognized in this area.

You know, if anyone finds out that I was essentially doing business with

Baltimore City Police, I was as good as dead.

Someone I knew was a marijuana dealer. I immediately take the weed to him.

I'm scared because he's a dangerous guy.

And the street value of it was about $50 ,000.

So he's suspicious of what I actually have.

He started me down.

So I build up every ounce of strength that I have in me, and I start right

at him.

He says, if you get this weed, I tell him that, you know, that's my business.

And it worked.

So at that point, in my mind, I just have to give Detective King the money,

then, you know, this thing is going to be over.

So I go to meet King.

He's smiling from ear to ear.

Looks like someone that just hit the lottery.

He says, you're everything that you was ever supposed to be.

And then he says, this is going to be a regular thing between me and you.

I can't do this no more.

Come on, look at all this money that you got. I realized this wasn't a one -time

deal. It was something that was going to go on and on and on.

So after that, King begins to call me very regularly,

maybe once a week, twice a week, with drugs

that he has confiscated that he's looking to wholesale.

If the cops catch a wind on what I'm doing, then I'll probably go to federal

jail.

I knew that this was a relationship that would eventually end in disaster.

So at this point in my life, I'm 17 years old. You know, I have my

the time.

I had to keep selling drugs a secret because she wouldn't have accepted it at

all.

I would tell her that I had been gambling and I wanted shooting dice.

but I had found out my girlfriend is pregnant.

So at this point, I'm like shaking in my boots. You know, I wasn't prepared to

be a parent at all. Like, I wasn't even adult myself.

But at the same time, I knew that I didn't have a choice in the matter and

that I was essentially about to have to man up.

I have to get out of this situation, King.

And so I decided that the next time I see him, I'm going to tell him I'm out.

But this time, I realized his demeanor is totally different.

I look at... the package of drugs in smaller amounts than normal.

He's telling me that that's all he can come up with.

He can't find as many drug dealers. He's desperate at this point.

He throws out the suggestion that

maybe instead of me buying the drugs from him, I told him who had them.

I need to know where the stash house is at.

For me to become a snitch and help him, you know, target dealers, I told him

I agreed to sell him, but I never agreed to help you get him.

You don't work like that.

You know, snitching on my friends, you know, that's the ultimate betrayal.

I'm not asking you, Devon.

I'm telling you.

He told me if I don't get information to him soon that something's going to

happen.

He would plant evidence and get me a long time in jail. I mean, it would have

been all out war at that point.

I wanted out, but I couldn't tell him because it seems like it's about to

hit the fan.

So at this point, I don't have any choice.

And I just tell him, it's fine, I'll do it.

But I tell him that, you know, I need a few days for logistics to help him find

dealers and stashes and everything.

I was kicking a can down the road trying to start it by some time.

But at that point, my life was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

Detective King wanted me to give him the names of high -level dealers so that he

could get his business started and booming once again.

A few weeks later, he called me.

Yeah.

What you gonna do for me, Devon?

King said, do you got any information for me?

I need their names. I need the corners. Do you understand?

I knew that soon something had to happen.

I tell him that I'm working on something, temporarily keeping him off

while I came up with a better plan of getting rid of him.

Give me Nate.

Hello?

But it's like a house of cards.

You know, just one wrong move, all could just fall down.

A couple of days later, I just take a short walk to the store.

I see a police car.

The lights are flashing. The officer told me, he says, you've been detained

questioning.

You know, so I immediately ask him, you know, what's the charge?

I'm like, what the hell is going on right now?

They take me to Central Bookend.

It's totally new territory for me.

I'm just trying to hold myself and hold my composure and prepare myself because

I know that whoever walks through this door is about to maybe level my whole

life.

The next thing I know, I look up.

And I see King.

And then he said, come with me.

You know, his domain is all business.

He says to me, You see the reach I have.

You give me names, you get to walk out that door.

King had flexed his muscle, you know. He had got me picked up off of the streets

with the snap of his fingers.

He said to me, what do you have for me? You need to give me something.

I just said, that is nothing that I can do. You know, I can't help you.

Not a snitch.

But I know if I didn't give him any information, he could level the

weight of the whole Baltimore City Police Department against me.

He gives me a star down.

But I tell him there's nothing I can do to help him with that.

I felt like King had declared war at that point.

I had made a deal with the devil and it was time to pay the dues.

But for some reason, they let me go.

But I knew this wasn't over yet.

The first thing that was crossing my mind... was having Ken killed.

I knew I had enough money that I could even orchestrate a hit on him easily.

I knew people that were crazy enough to do it.

But I immediately come back to reality that I'm not a murderer, you know.

In the middle of the perfect storm that I got going on, I get a phone call.

Come down to the hospital.

Next

thing

you know, I say the most beautiful thing I've saw in my life.

She looked at me, and she started crying, and then, like, right there,

just knew that everything had to be over.

At this point, my daughter is my exit plan.

You know, as soon as I see her, that's it. I have to be around to raise her,

know, and teach her right from wrong.

I didn't want to raise my child from a jail cell, and I didn't want to raise my

child from the grave.

I began to just realize how much, you know, how serious that I had to be about

getting Detective King out of my life.

I realized essentially that I have to go up the food chain. I needed to step up

to the next level. So I picked up my phone, and I called the FBI.

Someone picks up.

I take a breath.

And I say I'd like to report a crime.

He says, what type of crime?

I tell him that I've been recruited by some cops.

I'm selling drugs for these guys. They're robbing dealers.

They want me to snitch on people.

I'm looking for a way out. You know, I just pour it out. You know, I'm crying.

You know, I'm telling them, like, I'm just tired.

I started to realize, talking to them, that I was just a child that was robbed

of their childhood.

And now, you know, I'm free for my life and my family's life.

And then he says, we're going to need to meet you.

I tell him, OK.

Now I've told the FBI about my crimes. You know, I'm on their radar.

There was no turning back at this point.

I don't know exactly how this is going to play out.

You know, this is the FBI we're talking about now. This isn't just some local

cop.

I'm feeling more nervous than I've ever had in my whole life.

This guy says to me, hello, I'm Major Richard Wolfe.

Why didn't you take it from the top?

I can tell that, you know, he's by the book, law and order.

He strips the drugs off the street and not resell them. I opened up like a

butterfly. He proposed that I work for him. So I told him everything.

It's blackmailing me, man. Detective Wolf says to me, for us to get started,

are going to have to have some type of proof. Yeah, sure, yeah.

Of what's going on.

Can you call him now?

So, I called King.

At this point, it's not aggressive. You know, he's just making a conversation.

Listen, I know I've been rough on you. Maybe he's desperate at this point. I

want you to know I respect you. And he doesn't want to lose me.

I've been thinking.

I got a plan.

He says to me, let's get back to making money.

So we agree to meet the next day at the credit union where his office was.

We hang up the phone, you know.

Agent Wolf begins to lay it out to me.

He tells me that I would have to wear a recording device.

Do you feel comfortable becoming an informant? Immediately, when he says

you know, I'm going through my head like, oh, whoa.

It's small, so you can conceal it really easily.

I'm sitting looking at this recorder, and I'm thinking that, you know, this is

first -class snitch stuff right here.

Now I'm an FBI informant.

Out of everything that I've ever done in my life, this by far scared me the

most.

But I just had to keep on going and see this through to the end.

I'm doing this for my daughter.

The next day, I'm beginning to get really nervous.

Now I've got double the trouble at this point. I've got to watch if people see

me meet with King. I've got to watch if people see me meet with the FBI.

I've got to worry about if King sees me meet with the FBI.

The enemies have increased tenfold.

So I gather myself.

I'm ready. I've got my game face on.

I tuck the recorder in my pocket, and I head off.

I start going over all scenarios.

If this recorder makes any noise, what would I say? You know, how would I

explain this all?

Subject is moving into position.

I seen people in cars. I knew that they were probably surveilling the meeting

and everything.

King told me to meet him in the bathroom.

So now at this point, you know, my heart is racing.

Hello?

Anybody in here?

In walks Detective King.

It's a dead silence in the air.

It's almost overwhelming.

But then he's just reaching in his pocket like, hey, take this money.

I don't know what's going on.

Then he explained to me what it's for.

He said to me that I was going to essentially take the money and buy some

and that I was going to sell them.

And we would split the profits evenly.

He asked me, you know, how long is this going to take?

I told him, you know, within like two to three weeks that I would give him a

good return on investment.

After that, like his whole mood went kind of solemn.

Are you going to help me with the other dealers?

He brings up the point once again of giving him the names of high -level

dealers.

So I realized this was something that was going to go on and on and on.

You know, he tells me that, you know, he isn't playing around anymore and that

we're essentially not going to keep kicking the can down the road, you know,

either, you know, I'm going to give him something or we're going to take more

drastic measures.

Oh, I know what that meant.

If I didn't do what he wanted, I would have been killed or murdered in the

streets of Baltimore.

I immediately proceed to meet Agent Wolf and hop in the car.

By reaching my pocket, I give him a quarter.

You're going to have to give me something, or we're going to take more

measures. At this point...

I'm thinking I won.

You know, this thing is over.

I asked him if we got what we need to, you know, take him down.

I'm afraid that it's nowhere near enough.

He told me that this was sort of like a marathon, not a race. We need to catch

King in the act of handling stolen drugs so that way we had enough evidence to

put him away for good.

You know, I've done all this, you know, and...

It's still not enough.

But I was in too deep. The only path that I had was forward.

You know, I had to continue.

At this point, King is like waiting for me to become a snitch and help him, you

know, target dealers.

Essentially taking their stashes.

So I came up with this idea, you know, if we get some drugs, you know, in a

large quantity, and I stash the packs somewhere, that King would go and get

and bring them to me.

But the FBI won't give me actual crack cocaine.

So I knew the perfect substitute, peanuts.

Crack cocaine looks just like peanut that you break up into a lot of pieces.

There's little sharp pieces. It looks like peanuts.

So that night, we get ready to execute the plan.

At this point, I've agreed to set up a corrupt cop.

As I'm walking, you know, to stash a big crack, I'm just feeling

adrenaline.

So I stash the package, and then I build up the carriage to call King.

At this point, my heart, I mean, you could almost tap to it. You could almost

dance to it.

I immediately tell him that I have a survival dealer in the neighborhood,

and he's being a bit of a nuisance for me.

I told him, I want you to go and take the stash and bring it to me.

So I tell him where to find the drugs.

He says to me, I'm on my way.

And he tells me he's going to call me back in five minutes. All right.

All right, Juan.

I'm breathing hard.

That was exhilarating.

It was a rush.

I get in the truck with Agent Wolf.

He asked me how'd everything go.

Yeah.

I think he took the bait.

The phone rings again, and it's King.

I begin to direct him step by step. I tell him that you're going to have to

him down about 10 yards.

And then look towards your left. You'll see a bag.

What? The trash can?

That's right.

I can hear him walking on the phone.

And then the next thing I know, I hear Jackpot.

My man.

And I know that he's found his dash.

It's time to meet King.

Agent Wolf gives me the money that I promised King, you know, at the credit

union in the bathroom.

You know, with his return on investment.

It's purposely marked so that they can later identify the bills once they

retrieve them.

Wolf gives me the look.

It's game time. You ready?

And I just give him the nod.

I turn the recorder.

This is one of the most important moments of my life.

You know, this is going to make or break this case.

I get in the car.

It's a dead silence in the air.

So, man, how you doing?

I could really start to feel the animosity, you know, coming off of him.

And then he tells me, you know, if you would have listened to me from the

beginning, we would be so much further along in our business relationship than

we are now.

But my deal wasn't over yet. There was one final twist.

He had a gun.

I knew right then and there that my whole life was in danger.

My heart was pounding.

King is trying to assert his will on me again.

But then, it was all business.

He asked me, you know, how much are we looking at?

So I grabbed the fake crack.

I tell him, you know, that we have about eight G -Packs.

Worth $1 ,000 apiece.

You know, one time I sold him.

He looks at me with the Chuck E. Cheese smile and says, it's cool with me.

Sounds cool to me.

And then I give him the money for his return on investment from before.

I'm feeling really nervous because, you know, I know King knows about mock bills

and stuff.

I remember just feeling like this rush, this rush of emotion, like I've got

everything I need.

And I reached out for his hand, and I shook his hand.

But as I'm shaking his hand, you know, I'm saying, I got you, bitch.

I got you. I finally got you, you know.

Immediately when I get in, I reach in my pocket, I give him a quarter.

He tells me, great job, you know, great job.

You know, this is what we needed.

You've done everything that we needed you to do.

You know, we don't need you to do anything else.

This is it. We got it from here, and we'll be in touch.

That was it. That was the last time I worked undercover.

Day in court come.

I am a nervous wreck.

You okay?

Let's go, son.

I've never done anything like this before.

Since the year 2002, when I was 15 years old. I started to explain to the

court and the judge.

You know, how much of a monster this guy was.

How much intimidation and fear that

they put into this neighborhood and how he ruled it.

We, the jury, find the defendant, William King, has to count one,

distribute narcotics, guilty.

Count two, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, guilty.

Count three.

Conspiracy to possess firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Guilty.

I remember just looking up and smiling and just saying to myself, finally free.

Finally over. It's finally over.

I realized that I didn't want to have a child that on bring your child to work.

She said that my father was the biggest drug dealer in Baltimore.

So I just knew right then and there that I needed to do better, do better for

myself and for my children.

It was up to me to teach them the values and the morals and principles that my

grandmother never had a chance to finish teaching me.

So I started thinking, you know, maybe getting a job and, you know, the life

that I thought was so boring didn't look so boring anymore.

So I enrolled into a trade school.

At the end of the year, I graduate with top marks.

Now I'm just all about giving back to the community.

I'm building gardens for schools.

brand new houses that are being built. I'm doing all the 3D designing for them.

I wanted to be that symbol, and I wanted to be the person there to support the

kids and let them know that anything that you want to be, you can do it.

I finally felt like I went from a boy to a man, finally, for once in my life.