If someone labels you a superpredator, people are always going to prejudge you. Once you have that label on you, you can’t escape it; it’s stuck there. I want to meet the person who actually came up with that term. I’m not a predator. I was a kid who made a terrible decision, and I was a bully who took on other bullies. But I did not prey on the weak.
I was arrested immediately after the crime, so I was in the detention center and didn’t see any of the newspaper articles about me at the time. They did have the television playing in the day room—I think it was on WGN—and sometimes my case would be on the news. It felt horrible. The way they described me, I was like, Man, you don’t even know me. I didn’t even meet a journalist in person until after I was in prison.
All these doctors and specialists came in to see me when I was in juvenile detention. It was like, Y’all are adults, and I’m a kid. But y'all don’t want to get to know me, you want to research me.
Continue reading here courtesy of Derrick Hardaway and The Marshall Project.