Black Johnson

This was a defining moment for me. Every decision to this point in my life had been the wrong one. In the back of that car I had made a conscious decision to do the right thing. Not for me, not for the fellows, but for Breezy’s mother, and the mother of his children. He had fathered a son with Pretty and she was pregnant. It was the least I could do. At that point I had decided to tell the TRUTH. Yes, I had told the truth. Breezy was dead and nothing else mattered. I had no one to turn to, to help me deal with these feelings. I was lost, hurt, and confused. But I had made what I felt was the right decision. And that was to tell the truth. So I told the police what happened, only to find out later that this was considered snitching. Now at that time my understanding of snitching was if you committed crimes with someone, got caught, and told on the others involved, you were a straight snitch. Only to find out that this was also considered snitching. An innocent man gets shot for something he had nothing to do with, me knowing why it happened and having to explain it to his mother and the mother of his children, and you think that in that moment I was worried about being considered a snitch? No, I was not. Not at all. And today, I still believe that I made the right decision. I was never a gangster or lived by some street code. I was a young man trying to survive. And here’s the truth about snitching: I have never told or snitched on any of my friends with all the dirt we did together. This was my defining moment and I was not thinking about what anyone thought but about what was right. Was I supposed to lie to my friend’s mother about his murder? Would you? Have you? Could you? I will not apologize for telling the truth. Period.