i don t know if he read the book. did you say good-bye to your brother? yeah, i kind of teared up. i hate that he s leaving. i used to sit in here every day and get the paper and we would go straight to the local section and you ll find in briefs, shootings in oakland. and i always read to see if i see my brother s name in there. i don t know what i would do. that would devastate me. i d probably lose my mind. while i was on the road, working out in grand rapids, i was in bed one night at the hotel and my phone started going off. and i woke up and i grabbed my phone and i had gotten a text message from a deputy in oakland telling me the news that ezekiel had been murdered. i immediately grabbed my computer and started searching for news articles online and, unfortunately, i was able to pull one up that confirmed that
talking to him. and he basically was just the person that gabriel described him to be. what s up, bro? ezekiel was back in jail due to a probation violation on his original conviction for burglary. he was assigned to the same protective custody unit as gabriel, because he too had recently sworn off gang life. we tell each other every day, if i walk by here, point at me and do a little heart to me. i m like you know, like he s my girlfriend. we ve been together our whole lives. you can probably count on one hand how many things i don t know about him. he s my brother. we ve grown up together, through the foster system and group homes, both our parents are deceased. it came to a point where if he couldn t stay at the group home i was in or foster home i was in, we re going to run, we re going to meet each other in the same spot. we will sleep in a stolen car together or, excuse my french, i won t tell it on camera, but, you know, we would be sleeping, and he would give me som
the inmates that we had signed, and lo and behold, his name was on there. two months later, police arrested the prime suspect in ezekiel s death, michael souter. he was charged with murder and pled not guilty. we had known this man. i watched this man holding hands with the brothers during a prayer circle. may yes bless the less and unfortunate. in jesus name we pray, amen. y all ain t brothers. home video we were able to acquire showed ezekiel and souter together on the day of ezekiel s death. they were friends. and according to witnesses, they got into an argument later that day. i think finding out about ezekiel, particularly being shot and killed, was so disturbing to me. i have to be honest, my initial reaction was, he must have gone back to his old ways of robbing drug dealers. i was able to reach out to one of the taylor brothers close friends and he was the one who
i ve been shot am in my face, been shot in my thighs, my back, my ass. i ve been sh a few times. but, i mean, it s the cost of doing business. i was struck by ezekiel s loathing of drugs and drug addiction. i mean, drugs seem to surround ezekiel in many ways. i mean, i think it caused a deprivation in his childhood. his brother, whom he adored, had a drug addiction, and that really bothered ezekiel. my daddy ain t raising no dope fiends. why all of a sudden you want to start using drugs? you going to let somebody else convince you to pay them your money, take out of your children s mouth, so you can poison yourself? that s just stupidity. that s beyond stupid. ezekiel can t stand me on meth. if you see somebody sitting there cutting on theirself, basically, cutting theirself, cutting their throat, you keep stopping them but he keeps cut himself, it s the same thing
other. i raised him, he raised me. and we all we got. you re his older brother. does that give you a little more responsibility in terms of it does, but at times, he s been my older brother. i can all honesty more often than not. nah, but in a way, especially since i ve been struggling with an addiction. crystal meth, man, that is a hell of a drug, man, and i m new to it, you know. i ve seen my brother crying, looking at me like, you re a dope fiend. at times, he plays the big brother role. there s times he would steal clothes and put them on my back. but if i was addicted to heroin or whatever, my brother s going to take care of me, period. that s my brother. take care of my back like his. i named two of my kids after him. one has his first name, ezekiel, and the other one has justin. that s my brother. i ve got his name across my back, the only tattoo on my back, and i leave that for a reason, that s the only man that got my back. it says, i am my brother s