it means he ll be locked inside his cell 23 hours a day and allowed out only for a shower or supervised rec time. check the cell out over, make sure there ain t nothing in here. this is like a dungeon in a dungeon. i guess that s the price you pay before you ever kill somebody or get killed. ronnie s story was not an unusual one for us to encounter. we ll start following somebody s situation and then it will completely go in another direction because prison life is pretty unpredictable. and what happens is, these guys basically not only have to face the consequences of their actions outside prison, but they often have to deal with them inside prison as well. while prison officials developed a plan for shephard s safety, we were allowed to give him a videocamera to record a personal diary. this cell that i m currently
after 20 years of incarceration, ronnie shephard was down to his last 900 days at indiana state prison. but ironically, those 900 days might be tougher than the preceding 20 years. after discovering the white supremacist gang shephard had recently dropped out of ordered a hit on him, authorities decided to move shepard to a temporary cell for the weekend. an rtu, a residential treatment unit temporarily. until they find the unit to put you in. to protect him, prison officials decided to move shephard to a housing unit, separated from the general population until they could find a more permanent solution, such as a transfer to another prison. you said you wasn t going to tell them where i m at? it won t go back to the cell house. this will go to the unit you re going on. shephard will also be placed on key lock status, a measure usually meant to discipline inmates, but in this case it s to protect him.
that s it, period. why would i lay in here and let you kill me, over something dumb? or do something to you over something dumb? shepard eventually met with prison officials to discuss his safety and even the possibility of transferring to another prison. how are you doing, mr. shephard? how has everything been since you ve been up here? it s all right. i mean, it s solitary confinement, really, but if that s what i got to deal with until i go home, that s what i m going to do. because i m up on 900 days. and if it takes me staying in that cell until i go home to avoid all the craziness going on out there, do this or do that or get this or end up having this done to you, all that, they can keep all that. i m going home. okay. i will get with internal affairs. make sure we follow up and make
and i m like, ready for what? and he pretty much basically told me that they re coming, they re going to cut all the tattoos off of me that are aryan related and basically take my life. not long after shephard was given the knife, correctional officers found and confiscated it. it s small, easily concealed, honed in, a good edge on it. this one has a little magnet on the side of it so they can stash it any place they want to. up underneath the cabinet, under the bed. up on a light fixture, a rail. it s easy to get to it so they can use it real quick. if they were coming to get you, why would they give you a knife? that s just being noble. i mean, part of being aryan is being noble. you have to have some nobility about yourselves.
first chance i get, i m covering my tattoos up. i don t want them. yeah, that was me. but i m done with it. i m done. you know? it s over. i m just me now. you know? accept it or don t. why did you choose to leave the life? because it s it s not the life i want, you know? but the life shephard claimed to want was still deeply entangled in the life he used to have. the next time we saw him, shephard told us his former gang had sent him a message. they weren t accepting his retirement. while i m tattooing on this guy, another guy comes up to the cell and hands me a knife. i don t think nothing of it. i put it up because we do that all the time, here hold this, here hold that. and he tells me, be ready because we re coming for you.