was directed at his cellmates. i don t have a problem taking no cellie. what i have a problem with is crack heads, people who don t know how to jail. people who expose themselves to female staff. i have a mother and sister. i don t play that. one cellie in particular sent randall into a rage. he had raped and cut these females up, and put b and g all over the wall and he s laying up in a cell bragging to me about what he did. i said man, you really did that? what got me is when he blew a 9-year-old girl s head off. they put him in a cell. i said, man, you really did that? he start laughing, like yeah. what i did to him, i said i m going to treat you like you treated them women. i stuck my hand up his to my forearm, and made him drink out of the toilet and almost threw him off the tier. they said that s it, you can t have any more cellies, man. randall eventually quit his gang and his behavior improved even more after correction officials told him that despite
his violent record he might one day be released. after all these years i never gave that no thought cause i didn t care. i was playing tag with satan. i didn t care. now i look back on it and i think, wow, they re seriously considering letting me go. i haven t had a write-up in three years. that s like a dope fiend going through withdrawal. for somebody who led such a violent past, it was very interesting to find what james randall did in his spare time. he made cards, cute little cards for kids. draw mickey mouses. i love you. happy birthday. you know? it was therapy for me instead of acting out, i draw. though randall has attempted to put violence behind him, he knows his past can haunt him. in prison or out. in my mind, coming from the dark side as i like to call it, you re out but you re never out.
on you, right? being in this environment, i ve had to become and to be a predator in order to avoid being prey. finding appropriate housing for convicted killers who have continued their violent ways behind bars is always a challenge. a fact dramatically illustrated during our visit to kern valley state prison in california. it s always work, work, work. when we met james randall he was working his prison job, helping officers serve food to his fellow inmates. when we sat down to talk in his cell, randall seemed to only have one concern. how his shaved head looked on
camera. there ain t no lint on my head or nothing. want some gel. if it ain t light enough i ll be shining like new money. you look good. when you interview people in prison, you know they re in there for a good reason. when you meet him, sometimes they re very likable, they could be somebody you might even think you could be friends with. sometimes you end up hearing a jaw-dropping story. the day we met james randall, we heard a jaw-dropping story. i originally came to jail february 21st, 1981. i was convicted in san bernardino county for murder and robbery. given a sentence of 34 years to life, randall was 18 at the time of his conviction. but his rap sheet started much earlier. i ve been gang banging since i was 9 years old. coming from an impoverished neighborhood, southern california, my mother, father, tried to move to pomona to establish a better life for us. by the time we moved to pomona, which is mostly a middle, upper class neighborhood, being
already bit by the gang bug we just exported the gang life out there. randall s gang activity led to his incarceration by the california youth authority and soon after, prison. there, he joined a militant gang called the black guerrilla family. ended up spending 15 years in solitary confinement for prison activities and conduct. tried to get back into the main line. it was hard after facing walls for 15 years in handcuffs everywhere i went. i didn t adjust too well. i still became more assaultive, more combative, more violent. after 25 years of incarceration, randall had plenty of violent episodes to share. i had threw a bomb in an inmate s cell and blew his toilet off the wall, you know, blew a patch of his leg off. an officer came to my door. i made a zip gun out of magazines. i shot him in the face. as the story unfolds about why he s there and what he s done in prison, it can send chills up your spine. it occurs to you, i m sitting right in front of this guy. anything cou