Eng 101

Dear Members of the Portfolio Committee,

My name is Erin Bresnahan. After graduating from Taunton High School in 2015, I attended Framingham State University ready for my future. I had no clue what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be and no idea on who I was. After a very hard and emotionally draining first semester I dropped out of Framingham State with no credits to my name. I decided to take some time off from school and focus on working. Initially I told myself I would attend BCC for summer 2016, but with the craziness of life I did not return to school until January 2017. On the first day of classes I remember giving myself a pep talk while driving, I told myself I could do it and that it will be hard, but I will succeed. Now here I am at the end of my first semester and I couldn’t be more happy with myself and the work I have put in.

I knew walking into English 101 that I was a decent writer. I had always done well in English in high school and even had a couple of my poems put in my high school magazine. With that said I still knew I had a lot to work on, my grammar and spelling especially. Growing up with undiagnosed ADD (I was diagnosed as a senior in high school) I tended not to pay attention when the teacher was talking about sentence structure or use of commas/ semi-colons. My idea of a good sentence was if it sounded good in my head. Over this past semester I have tried to correct my grammatical habits and although I have not mastered it I have become a lot better. As for spelling, spell check is my best friend. I have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears (more tears than anything) into these three pieces of work and I am very proud of them.

My first essay “My Experience Riding Along with the Fall River Police” was probably the most difficult but rewarding piece I have ever written. When I first found out I had to find something within my law and crime theme to observe, I froze. I had no idea what I was going to do. Until one of my classmates said that he rode along with the Fall River police in high school. I thought it was brilliant. I called the very next day and made the appointment. The only appointment they had was on a friday night, only two days before the rough draft of the essay was due. I work at a breakfast place in the morning on the weekends and had a concert that Saturday night also, so the only time I could sit and write the essay was Sunday afternoon after work. When I got home from work that Sunday I sat and hand wrote my entire essay using 10 front and back notebook pages, after that I had to type it all. It took me a total of 7 hours from start to finish to complete this essay. I wanted to make sure I got every detail I could about my night into the paper. Although it was a lot of work, I am very proud of this essay and had a great time riding along with the Fall River police.

In my second essay “For Profit Prisons” I discussed the problems of privately owned for-profit prisons. I explored how these companies made their money, how it relates to politics and what the living conditions are in these prisons. This was a research essay and although it wasn’t too difficult to do, research essays and I do get along very well. I do not get the same creative satisfaction out of research essays that I get out of different types of writing. Despite my personal feelings toward research essays I do think I did fairly well and experience like this helps me grow as a writer.

The last essay I am including in my portfolio is “The Wrong Crowd”, this is my personal memoir of the time I was arrested. This essay shows the reader that the people you choose to hang out with can really dictate different events that occur in your life. Although I am not proud of anything that happened on the night of my arrest it did help me grow as a person. This essay sent me for an emotional rollercoaster while writing it. It took me a total of 4 days to write because every time I started I got so overwhelmed and had to stop. I contemplated multiple times to just scrap the essay and write about something else. But, I was determined and thought of it as a way to come to terms with everything that happened.

When I think back to the beginning of the semester not only have I changed as a person, but a writer. I believe this portfolio demonstrated my abilities to communicate an idea with strength and focus. I plan to keep working on my writing and developing my skills every chance I get no matter whether it is a writing class or not. I hope you enjoy my portfolio as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I arrived at the Fall River Police Station around 3:30pm on Friday, March 10th, not knowing what was in store for me. I had signed up to do a ride along with a police officer to gain insight into what really being a police officer was like. After signing in at the front desk, I was taken to meet the sergeant. The sergeant had me fill out paperwork including signing a waiver. He had me wait in an interview room for what seemed like forever until road call was over. As I was waiting, officers were walking by laughing, joking and having a good time. This was different for me, I normally thought of police officers as hard-asses who weren’t capable of laughing. The Sergeant finally came in and introduced me to the officer I was spending the night with.

Officer David Gouveia was a tall, husky, buzz cut man. We made our way to cruiser #9. The first thing I noticed while getting into the SUV was that right behind our seats was a glass and steel bar barrier to protect us from whoever was going to be in the back seat. Then I notice the computer sitting in between me and Gouveia. Gouveia told me that the first thing an officer does when you get into your cruiser is check for any damages. If anything doesn’t work or is physically damaged check and see if the last officer using the vehicle had reported it. If he does not check for damages and something is damaged that the last officer did not report, then it is now your problem and is listed under your damages. Gouveia then explained that Fall River is broken into 12 “sectors”. We were in sector #9, hence the number of our cruiser. Sector #9 went from Globe Street to the Tiverton line and Cook Pond to the Taunton River.

My anticipation and excitement went through the roof as we were about to leave the station. Gouveia had to stop at his car and grab a couple personal items. It had snowed that day and when I looked out my window I saw a couple officers throwing snowballs at an officer trying to clean off his cruiser. One of the snowballs hit the officer in the chest, he just laughed and started to throw them back. That’s when Gouveia got back in the cruiser and we were off! As we were pulling out of the station, Gouveia explained to me how the laptop works. There was a list of names with numbers in different colors. He said that if the officer’s name was red he was on a call, yellow he was in pursuit of a call and green meant that they were clear. Whenever you get a call a box will pull up on the screen telling you all of details giving during the 9-1-1 call. He showed me how you could directly message any officer on duty and that you can file police reports right from the laptop.

We started driving around, and I asked Gouveia what made him want to be a police officer. He said growing up in Fall River he always wanted to be an officer. He knew that he could make a change in the community by becoming an officer. He said he started in Swansea as a part-time dispatcher, then got transfered to Fall River for a full-time dispatcher position. After a while he got offered a part-time officer position and 12 years ago he became a full-time police officer. He said he likes being an police officer because it was fun and everyday was different.

At this point we were driving around patrolling different parking lots. At one parking lot there was an SUV parked in the fire lane. Gouveia turned of his blue lights, and the owner came running out of the store. She said she had just ran inside to return and item and was leaving. As we were about to pull away a woman came running up to my window. She told us about a minivan that had been in the parking lot since this morning with the sliding door open with snow inside the car. We pull over to the car and Gouveia runs the plates and it comes up to a man living about a mile from the parking lot but no phone number. He closes the sliding door and head to this man’s house. When we arrive at the house Gouveia looks at the man’s information again and notices that the registration expired on February 26th, 2017. Gouveia gets out of the car and says, “Come on”, I was so excited but so nervous at the same time. I didn’t think that I was actually going up to people’s doors with him. The owner of the car came to the door saying he had just gotten off the phone with his daughter, she was working in the plaza and her coworker told her she saw a police officer at her car. She went out to her car and the same woman that spoke with us told her she left the door open and that she didn’t want anything to get stolen so told us. Gouveia told him about the expired registration and the man said he would pay to have it updated that night.

After leaving that house and driving around for a little bit, I got the courage to ask Gouveia what was the scariest thing that has ever happened to him on the job. I knew this was an iffy question to ask because I did not want to bring up bad memories for him. He took a deep breath and paused for a moment. Gouveia told me that last year on July 13th 2016, he was involved in a shootout that resulting in the perpetrator dying. After finding a news article I found more information to what Gouveia told me. The man that was killed was an 80 year old man named Edward Acquisto. Acquisto who according to Gouveia was a “career criminal”. During his many years in and out of jail, Acquisto become very religious. When he was last released in 2003 Acquisto joined a church group led by the minister John Cloud. Cloud loaned Acquisto several tens of thousands of dollar to start a charity. By July 2016 Cloud had still not been paid and was asking for repayment. Acquisto told Cloud to meet him at Pocasset Hill Cemetery in Tiverton RI, Acquisto was often found reading the bible there. Acquisto told Cloud he was going to give him his money. When Cloud arrived at the cemetery Acquisto took out his pistol and fatally shot him twice in the chest. Thankfully there were other people in the cemetery who heard the gunshots and called the police giving the license plate of the vehicle they say leave immediately after. Gouveia told me he was on patrol that night assigned to the same sector we were that night. The was a call over the radio for everyone to look out for a car coming into Fall River from Tiverton given Acquistos’ licence plate and car description. A minute or two after the call, Gouveia saw the car matching the description and started to follow it. He made sure the car had the correct licence plate then turned his lights on. Gouveia had no idea that Acquisto had just killed a man so when Acquisto sped up leading Gouveia on a chase, Gouveia was surprised and called for backup. Acquisto led him and two other Fall River officers right back into Tiverton across the street from the Pocasset Hill Cemetery where they were met by two Tiverton officers. Acquisto pulled into a driveway within view of where he shot and killed Cloud. When he got out of the car he had a pistol in his hand and opened fire. Gouveia was one of three officers to fire their weapon ultimately killing Acquisto.

Shocked by what I had just heard I ask Gouveia if the pros of being a police officer outweighed the cons. He sort of just sat there for a minute then said yes, of course. Gouveia said how he never wants to hurt anyone and does not like to arrest people. He said how he likes to believe in the good of people, but can’t help but arrest them when they break the law, it is his job. He told me that multiple people have thanked him for arresting them, it made them turn their lives around. Gouveia said that the biggest reward of being a police officer is seeing that what have you has done has helped someone else and made a difference in their life.

We drove around for a little while longer until we got our first real call. It was 7:05 pm and a 62 year old man had fallen on the ice down the street from his house and cracked his head open. Gouveia immediately turned on his lights and sirens speeding down the streets of Fall River. When we arrived to the man, he was alert and standing with a lot of blood coming from his head. His neighbor had found him on the ground and called the police waiting with him until we arrived. He had his young son bring him a towel from inside the house and was oddly calm. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I tried making small talk with the son asking him how old he was, he said he was 10 and his father chimed in saying he was “ 10 going on 30” then laughed. The ambulance came and we waited until the son was in the front seat and dad was being evaluated to leave.

The man was not able to contact his wife because she was at a paint party with her friends, Gouveia said we were going to the Tuscany Building to find and notify his wife. We get to the paint party to see about a dozen women drinking wine before the party started. Once the woman saw Gouveia the started freaking out asking if everything was alright. Gouveia asked to speak with the man’s wife then told her what happened and that he was being transported to St. Anne’s Hospital only a mile or two away. She remained very composed, I then realized where her son had gotten it from. She said she would meet us at the hospital in five minutes.

We got to the hospital at the same time as the ambulance the man was in, he was wearing a neck brace and his head was bandaged. We told him his wife was on her way then Gouveia took some more of the man’s information. It seemed like Gouveia knew every nurse that worked at the hospital making small talk about kids,spouses and dogs with multiple nurses. We made our way to the lobby to see if his wife was waiting. Once we found her we brought her to her husband’s room. As soon as the wife walked in the man pointed at his son saying “He pushed me!!” then laughing. We found out later that night that the man just required stitches and was sent home.

When we got back in the cruiser Gouveia filed his report for the incident. Gouveia said that when it is an accidental injury, it is not required to file a police report but that he always does anyway. He said if the man didn’t end up being okay and had something like a bleed in his brain there would be no information documented on how the injury was sustained. He wrote his report with enough detail that doctor caring for can know exactly how the injury was occurred. We left the hospital around 7:45pm.
At 7:54 pm we got a call sending us to an apartment where the 1st floor was complaining about the noise level of the apartment on the second floor. The second floor apartment has five kids living in it ranging in ages 2 to 12. On the way there Gouveia told me that he had been to this residence before for a couple different reasons mostly involving the first floor. Gouveia also said that he hated calls like this, especially when it involves kids. There were five kids living in this apartment kids play so make noise is a given. Gouveia said then he feels bad because it makes the kids feel like playing and having fun is wrong.

We get to the house and into the first floor apartment to meet the 9-1-1 caller. She is a young lady no older than 30 who lives there with her boyfriend who was at work and her two kids, they have lived in the apartment for 4 years. She was very upset, she said that she couldn’t take the noise anymore that is was constant. She said 24 hours a day there is banging and/or screaming coming from the apartment. All Gouveia could say was that he will talk to them but it was really a concern for the landlord. The woman said she tells the landlord every month but he never does anything. She said the 3rd floor tenants complains every month also. Gouveia responding by saying well then don’t pay rent until the issue is fixed or find a new place to live. He told her that she pays the landlord rent and it is his responsibility to take care of these problems. The woman agreed and thanked us as we left.

We go up the stairs to the 2nd floor apartment. We get inside and the place looks like it had just been cleaned except for the coffee table that had everything need to roll your own cigarettes. We talk to both of the parents and they told us they just put the children to bed. Gouveia told them to keep the noise down and that any complaints should be told to the landlord. While Gouveia was talking with the parents I could hear children talking and yelling in the other room even though all the doors were closed. The people agreed and thanked us as we left.

We got back in the cruiser and started driving around 8:10 pm. I had told Gouveia I wanted to be back at the station around 9 considering I live 40 minutes away. He pulled into Sunny Hill Minimart where a car underestimated the drop between one parking lot and the next one over. The man’s car was tilted off the ledge, he was unable to reverse and if he pulled forward he would damage his back end of his SUV. After Gouveia talked to the car owner, he said the guy called a tow truck and we left. Next thing I know Gouveia was pulling back into the police station and parked next to my car. I thanked him for this opportunity and got out of cruiser #9 and got into my car.

Before going into this ride along I had a very negative opinion of police officers. I thought that a lot of arrests that police officers made were pointless and so they could meet their quota. After this experience I have a greater appreciation for law enforcement. A lot of officers may come off as hard asses but most of them are just everyday guys wanting to keep our communities save. Yes there will be some officers that aren’t very nice but you find people like that in every profession. I think the biggest thing that everyone needs to realize is that police officers are normal people just doing their job. They have families, they have hobbies and when they give you a ticket or arrest you it just them doing their job. I would like to thank the Fall River Police Department for this experience and a special thank you to Officer David Gouveia for letting me ride along with him and baring with me through all my tough questions.

A for-profit prison is a privately owned establishment that is outsourced by the government. For-profit prisons are run by big corporations such as CoreCivic (formerly known as Correction Corps of America), GEO Group Inc. and Management and Training Corp. with CoreCivic being the largest in the country. Private prisons hold about 12% of the nation’s federal prisoners which equals out to about 22,000 inmates.(Reilly) Although private for-profit prisons give the government a cheaper option to house prisoners, private prisons care more about making money then the inmate safety and living conditions, these prisons should be outlawed.

The companies that run for-profit prisons make the majority of their money from stipends given by the government. Most of the time the stipend is based on how many prisoners the prison has, but can be based on numerous different factors. To give you an example on the way this works, say a private prison can host a prisoner for $100 a day with all included expenses but they tell the government they will house them for $150 a day. Most of the time the government will take the offer because $150 a day is either less than what they can do a day for a prisoner or to be frank it takes the burden of the business aspects of a prison off them. After the government signs to the agreement all they have to do is supply the prisoners and oversee the prison. If the prison wants to make extra money they can cut down on services, such as cut out cleaning or get cheaper food services. Eliminating these services could bring down the cost to house a prisoner to $85 or $90 a day per prisoner. If the prison holds 1,000 inmates and gets paid $150 per day per prisoner but their cost is only $90 a day per prisoner, thats is a $60,000 profit per day for that prison.

Private Prisons also have a lot to do with politics. GEO Group donated $250,000 to the Trump Inauguration and for good reason. When Donald Trump was running for president one of his main points was enforcing immigration laws. When more laws are created or enforced the incarceration rate is higher, making private prisons more money. To put this into perspective, in August 2016 GEO Group’s stock was at $19.51 a share. When Donald Trump was elected into office on November 8, 2016 the GEO Group stock was at $23.88 a share and at the end of Trump’s first month as president their stock was even higher at $47.75 a share. Within 6 months the GEO Group stock more than doubled because of Trump’s election and will only rise because of his immigration laws.

Often for-profit prisons have substandard accommodations. One Mississippi private prison when going through trial to be closed was described by a federal judge as “paints a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world.” (Williams) This specific prison was full of corrupt prison guards who most were gang members themselves. The guards would organize “gladiator style fights between prisoners” they would also bet money on who would win these fights. When investigating the facility one investigator said the smell of marijuana was so strong he was scared of getting contact high. There was also an outstanding number of reports of younger inmates being raped by older inmates, many of the offenders being let into the victim’s cell by guards who knew what was about to happen. Unfortunately this isn’t just the case in this one facility. Many privately owned prisons have below standard conditions.

In a radio interview with Fresh Air, Seth Freed Wessler; an investigative journalist who spent 4 years investigating the conditions of private prisons, told the listeners about his experience in one Texas private prison. He said the entire prison was made up of “Kevlar tents” and each tent housed about 200 men in rows of bunk beds. The tents usually only had one guard overseeing the 200 men. Many of the prisoners complained about how hot it got in the tent and the odor caused by the heat and excessive amount of people in one space. Wessler said that the property was “rows of these massive Kevlar domes that stretched for a couple of football fields.”

Wessler also told Fresh Air listeners that a very common complaint among inmates at private prisons is the health care they receive, well don’t receive. Wessler said that many of the facilities he investigated “had no medical doctor at all” and they “significantly understaffed their nursing departments for months and months at a time”. Wessler said he often saw men with curable illnesses or injuries who ended up dying because of the prisons substandard medical care. Many men in these facilities contract HIV and have never been tested or treated resulting in their untimely deaths.

Private for profit prisons help save the government money but they do not provide the same standard living conditions that any human needs. These companies can more about making money than they do about the prisoner’s safety and health. Private for-profit prisons should be not only shut down but outlawed.

Works Cited

Bryant, Sean. “The Business Model Of Private Prisons.” Investopedia, 22 June 2015, http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/062215/business-model-private-prisons.asp. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.

“Investigation Into Private Prisons Reveals Crowding, Under-Staffing And Inmate Deaths.”NPR, NPR, 25 Aug. 2016, http://www.npr.org/2016/08/25/491340335/investigation-into-private-prisons-reveals-crowding-under-staffing-and-inmate-de. Accessed 9 May 2017.

Margulies, Joseph. “This Is the Real Reason Private Prisons Should Be Outlawed.” Time, Time, 24 Aug. 2016, time.com/4461791/private-prisons-department-of-justice/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.

Reilly, Ryan J. “Damning Report Finds For-Profit Prisons Are More Dangerous.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Aug. 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/for-profit-prisons_us_57acafe7e4b0718404101f14. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.

Schouten, Fredreka. “Private Prisons Back Trump and Could See Big Payoffs with New Policies.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 23 Feb. 2017, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/23/private-prisons-back-trump-and-could-see-big-payoffs-new-policies/98300394/. Accessed 2 May 2017.

Williams, Timothy. “Privately Run Mississippi Prison, Called a Scene of Horror, Is Shut Down.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Sept. 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/mississippi-closes-private-prison-walnut-grove.html. Accessed 9 May 2017.

*** All names except for my own have been changed for privacy reasons***

How did I end up here? Locked in this cell, all alone at 2:30 am with nothing but the clothes on my back and a concrete slate to sleep on. I hear my friends yelling my name in the distance. It all feels like a dream but I know I can’t wake up. I know this is not a dream, this is a living nightmare.

Growing up generally speaking I was a “good kid”. I had my moments of temper tantrums and arguments with my parents but nothing major. While in high school I had only received one detention. I was bullied a lot at my first high school leading me to transfer at the beginning of my junior year. Over the years I struggled with socializing and maintaining friendships due to anxiety. After graduating high school I started college at Framingham State University and quickly realized that was not the place for me. I left after my first semester.

Returning home was for lack of a better word, weird. I felt like an outsider in my own house. I felt like I didn’t even know my family anymore and they definitely didn’t know me. I also struggled to find friends, the remote few I did have were all away at college. Except Toni.

I went to high school with Toni and we hung out a couple of times the summer before I went away to college. Toni had curly light brown afro-like hair, his arms were covered up and down with tattoos most of which he gotten while in prison. Toni had been in prison for five months right after turning 18 in 2015. We started hanging out once a week, then a couple times a week then eventually everyday. Toni’s girlfriend’s name was Britney and over time her and I had gotten pretty close. Britney was hardly 5 feet tall with mid-length stringy brown/black hair. Toni and Britney both loved drinking, smoking and partying. Me on the other hand hardly ever drank and would only like to go to the occasional party. It had gotten to the point where I had let them drink in my car, only if it was clear alcohol in water bottles. And yes I know that is illegal but they were the first “real friends” I had ever had and I didn’t really think about the consequences. Thomas was the type of friend that would hang out occasionally with Toni, Britney and I. He was a little bit taller that I am ( I am 5’8) he had dark long straight hair and looked like your typical skater boy.

After months of hanging out on a daily basis, it was June 7, 2016. I was driving with Toni and Britney in the backseat of my minivan and Thomas was sitting next to me in the front seat. They were all drinking some clear alcohol out of their water bottles. I was completely sober. I was considered the “Mom” of the group. I would always be the one to make sure everyone was okay and happy. I remember being very tired that night from working earlier that day and it was already 11:30pm so I went down a this street with a playground at the end to park the car and take a nap while my friends just hung out drunk. This was a common stop that we went to when we did not want to go home, we usually parked there overnight and slept in my car. By this time all the alcohol was gone and we had thrown the water bottles out the window. After parking I reclined my chair and fell asleep I woke up around 12:15 am to hear Toni and Britney yelling outside the car. When I say yelling it was more like screaming at the top of their lungs. I didn’t know this at the time but it was about who loved who more. I then looked over to my right and Thomas had his entire body hanging out of my passenger side door covered in his own vomit.

Immediately annoyed I got out of my car and try to get Toni and Britney back in the car. After several failed attempts they get into the car 20 minutes later. At this point all I can think about is how amazing my bed would be so I start my car and start pulling down the street to bring them home. That’s when the bright blue lights come on in front of me. All I can remember thinking is “Oh Shit” I roll down my window and tell everyone to remain calm as I greet the officer. That’s the moment I realize there are a half a dozen cruisers and this is not going to end well. The officer asked me what was going on so I explained the sceniero. Quickly followed by saying that I was about to bring them home and he could follow me if the would like to make sure. Apperently he did not like my suggestion and said he would arrest me if I did not stop talking. Obviously terrified I said,“okay” then was startled when my car down was opened and I was put into handcuffs by a man twice my size. I was in complete shock all I could say over and over was “ All I said was okay! All I said was okay!!” There is no feeling comparable to having your hands tied behind your back and sitting in a police cruiser, definitely not something I had ever thought was going to happen to me. From that point on I was in bitch mode, I was angrier than I had ever been. Angry because of what my friends had caused and angry because all I had said was okay. I started commenting on the officers driving skills. Making note that he made an illegal merge and was going over the speed limit. We finally got back to the station and somehow Toni and Thomas were already sitting in the holding room. The officer brought me into a separate room from them where I could see them, but I could not hear them and they could not hear me. It was a big cell with with a bench lining the walls. I started pacing back and forth and all I could say was “ My mom is going to kill me! My mom is going to kill me!!” I was in this room for what seemed like eternity.

Finally they bring me into the room Toni and Thomas are in to take my mugshot. Honestly I have never seen a more unattractive picture of myself in my life. They sit me down next to Thomas and Toni and on the other side of Thomas. They ask me all the basic questions like age, address etc. I remember asking where Britney was, they told me that she was not arrested and was just escorted home, I was livid. She was the main reason the police were called, considering she started the argument with Toni. By this time Toni was pacing back and forth the officers kept telling him to sit down. Toni was not listening and started screaming “F**k the Police.” I had never seen Toni is defiant and out right rude it’s like he didn’t care that he had just gotten arrested or that he got his friends arrested. They ended up taking Toni out of the room and right as he was leaving Thomas leaned over and vomited all over an officer’s shoes. I couldnt help but laugh, the officers on the other hand did not find it very funny. They brought me into a small holding cell with a concrete bed and a phone. They told me to call whoever I wanted to bail me out. After several attempts of trying to use the phone all I heard was a dial tone, by this point it was roughly 2:30 am. I told the officers this and they said they would try to contact my mom. For the next 30 minutes all I heard was Toni screaming my name over and over again. I was very confused on why he was saying my name but I got so annoyed with it I ended up yelling telling him to shut up. The yelling stopped. I laid in the bed and somehow managed to fall asleep even though it was terribly uncomfortable. I get woken up around 5:30 am to them saying my mom had just paid my bail and I was free to go but had to be at the courthouse at 8:30am that same day. When I got into the car my mom did not say one word to me, she wouldn’t even look at me.

I had never been inside any courthouse before let alone in-front of a judge. Fortunately the district attorney cut me a deal because I was 19 and had no record; not even a ticket. She told me that
as long as I completed 24 hours of community service I would remain to have no record. I had until August 8th to get the 24 hours done. Let me tell you, if you do not get your community service done on time YOU WILL HAVE A WARRANT OUT FOR YOUR ARREST. I ended up having to go back to court because I had done just that. They gave me an extension until October 28th. I ended up getting all of it done and went back to court for them to tell me I was 100% a free woman with no record. I was the happiest person on the planet that day walking out of the courtroom.

As for Toni and Thomas, Toni was put in jail until November 2016 then immediately transferred to a rehab for alcoholics. He is still there until this day and I have no contact with him. Thomas was put on probation and has to get drug and alcohol tested every two weeks. I have not talked to him since late August after he stole $50 from me. Britney and I have lost all contact since this incident.

Coming out of this experience I realized that I have to pick and chose carefully who I am friends with. I would rather keep to myself and out of trouble than have the wrong friends that get me in trouble. Although I am writing this only eight months after this situation occurred, I am a completely different person. I used to have no motivation, was on the verge of being fired from my job for coming in late every shift, and my relationship with my family was virtually nonexistent. I had no hopes, no dreams and was 100% against going back to school. Today I am in my first semester of college with the dream of helping adolescents with mental health issues. I have been consistently early to work since August and now have a great relationship with my family. A lot of people would look at this event and be ashamed of what happened. I am not proud of what happened, but I am glad it did because I would not be the person I am today if it had not happened.