The Story of a Gang Leader Turned Death Row Chaplin

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That's OurAmericanStories.com. Here's some of our favorites. And now our own Alex Cortez brings us the voice of someone who's worked at the highest levels of two radically different, yet similar jobs.

But you might not have expected it, given this beginning, this very early start of his life. There was this lady named Osie Pittsfield that was allowed to come into our home, and she became the lady that cared for me and took care of me. Instead of the Stockton kid, Earl Smith's mom. As a result of that, I really bonded with Osie Pittsfield, who I call Grandmama. And she was like the protector for me.

My dad worked three jobs, and he was my best friend, and he still is, even though he's passed away. And in the midst of all of that, as I grew up, I felt a sense of rejection. Especially around a memory of when he was four years old, and he was sitting with his mom and her friends, and Earl noticed that the bottle for the newborn baby sitting on one of the lady's lamps was empty, and being told, shut up, fool, for what he said. I said that baby ain't got no milk, and you know, being slapped, being embarrassed to the point that I wet my pants because the women, and the women are laughing, I got slapped, and I'm this little kid, and I felt like, wow. It was a horrible feeling to be laughed at. I don't know what age people can go back and remember things from, but when you're four years old, and you can remember an incident like that, that puts a print.

It stamps something into your memory, into that memory bank that just doesn't go away. And what I did not realize was my mom had her own stuff in her box, and she was trying to deal with her stuff, and I was part of the stuff that she wasn't quite sure how to maneuver through. A young lady in the South, married to an older man, not of your own choice, and as a result of that, that guy is abusive to you. And so she ran away from him, and she wasn't even 16 years old through all of this. And then she marries again. And she's married by dad, she has two daughters and a son, and things are okay then, she's pregnant with me. You know, my mom, in actuality, in hindsight, had every reason in the world to be upset about this kid that shows up three and a half years after she finally quit having kids. She's in her early 20s and finally getting ready to have some kind of life after all these years, and the cycle is getting ready to repeat. She's going to have to take care of this child, her freedom is going to be hindered once again, it's almost like she's going to be shackled once again. And I represented shackles, in my opinion, because I think back on it, I represented shackles to her, and if I in fact represented shackles to her, her response to who I was was justified.

Because when you're oppressed or shackled, the one thing you want to do is get out of the shackles or get away from the oppression. So my mom did not have the opportunity just to be a young girl, a young lady. I mean, only later did I find that out. But when you're a kid, you don't know that. You don't know what your parents have gone through. And here you are. And you're feeling total rejection because you're a kid and all you want is to feel some kind of compassion, some kind of love.

And you think you're not getting it. Yet what I realized after the fact is she was giving me the best she had. And at least he had O.C. until his mom decided that he wouldn't have her either. I love this lady beyond reason. And then one day I come home and she's not there. And I'm like, where is she? Put her out.

What does that mean? What does that mean that she's not going to be here at night when I lay down? What does it mean that that lady who was my one safety net, what does it mean when they say that she's no longer going to be available? You don't understand what that you really have to understand what that lady meant to me. She. Man, she was. She was my answer. She's not here and you don't go look for her.

What does that mean? Don't go look for. You know, if you lose a million dollars, you're going to look for it. And she was worth much more than a million dollars to me. So I found out where she lived. And the word was, if you go there and you find if you don't come straight home from school, you know, you're going to get a spanking. So I weighed the two options.

Be around her for a little while and feel the love that she had for me. And get a spanking or just come home and not get a spanking. I chose the spanking. I chose it.

I fully understood when I got home because I was coming home late. I was going to get a spanking. But I didn't care.

And that's the other thing. You start as a kid to say, I don't care. And that can take you to some really dark places.

It can really take you to dark places when you realize at a very young age, I don't care. We had University of the Pacific that was in Stockton and we'd go over there and find a bike and ride home on it. You know, from the bicycle, you steal a car. Because you could steal a bike, you could steal a car.

Stabbed a guy that was actually a friend of mine and eight years old and just doing crazy things as a way basically to let this anger that I felt out. And I didn't understand it. Kids don't understand why they do what they do until later in life you find out, oh, that's what they call that.

That's why you did that. And you're listening to Earl Smith and what a remarkable voice he has. And straight as an arrow, he's telling the story as he recalls it now. And with real compassion, when we come back, we'll continue with Earl Smith's story. And as always, we cover these stories about love and the lack thereof, because, well, it defines a life, particularly love's absence. Earl Smith's story continues here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing in inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.

But we truly can't do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to our americanstories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.

Go to our americanstories.com and give. And we continue with Our American Stories and with Earl Smith's story. Feeling abandoned by his mom, Earl tried to fill this hole in his heart and fill it with crime.

The other thing my dad did for me was he took me to a field one day. I must have been like hate or die. And he takes his pistol out and he puts some stuff out and he starts shooting and hitting this stuff.

He says, you want to try? And when I put that pistol in my hand and I fired it, I cannot believe how that felt to me to fire that gun. And it was all the addiction of the sound of a gun in my hand is something I have not forgotten even to this day.

And it became a very bad thing that he considered to be a good thing he was doing, but it was a bad thing that I felt so great about the sound of that gun and it being in my hand. Because I was already at eight or nine years old, I was already committed to being doing aberrant things. I was already committed to being different than other people in my household.

I was already committed. I did not have a problem with the streets. I did have a problem with crime at eight or nine years old. And the gun part was just power. I knew how to, I learned how to shoot a gun.

I learned what it sounded like when I shot it. And for me, that was a power. So I'm not saying that it was wrong that he did it because he didn't understand what feeling that gave me the first time I did it. It's almost like if you use drugs, if you shoot dope, you're not going to remember what it felt like. Everyone says, hey, you want to get high. So you get high. And the reason you become addicted is because you keep trying to chase the first high you had.

And for me, my addiction was keeping, keep chasing the feeling of the first time I fired that gun. I mean, one time a guy almost, my dad and I were in the street and this guy swerves this car like he's trying to hit us. My dad jumps out the way I grab.

And, you know, it's like the guy is laughing and hooting and hollering as he goes down the street. My dad goes to get the gun. I take the gun from him and I hide it again. Then I find the guy and we lived by the railroad tracks. And I just, I mean, I beat the guy. I left him on the tracks to get hit by a train because of what he had done to my dad. And I kept the gun and I told everybody, I got this gun.

If anybody moves them, I'll shoot you. Earl was also a gang member, a pretty big drug dealer around US Route 99 and a college student. You know, part of the, part of this 99 corridor deal is you go from Turlock all the way to Sacramento.

And if you can have a drug trade through that whole corridor back in the day, you really being successful. We had an apartment in Turlock. We had one in Modesto. We had one in Stockton and you had people that lived in Sacramento. And every weekend we'd go to different cities for the parties and we'd do all of that, but we developed this corridor.

So Stanislaus State, San Joaquin Delta College, Sac City College, people were at different schools. And so everybody was really, really educated, really smart. It wasn't just that we were crazy people. It was, we were pretty smart. So we're all in school and we're all doing different things. I think all of us end up getting our degrees, at least a bachelor degrees. And from there, we, you know, some of us have advanced degrees, but we were okay.

But so it was almost like we were a group that did two things and somewhere in the midst of that. Earl would visit his old nanny, who we considered a grandmother, Osi. The thing that was so great about this lady was that she never moved more than half a mile away from our house. She always found someone that would let her rent a room that she would be close by me. She was that person until she went into the nursing home.

She was still living that close to that house I grew up in when she finally was in the nursing home. And you know, here's the deal. When you're, when you're a criminal, when you're committing crime, you know, yeah, for me, I tell people all the time, you know, there's a difference in gang membership and gang banging. And gang banging is when you're actually in the process of the stuff. Membership is what you're a part of. And I could separate the two. I tell people, yes, I'm a gang member because that's what I was. That's what my commitment is. That doesn't change.

I don't bang. So when I went to see my grandmother as a, when I was much younger, it didn't change that I was a part of a gang. I would always make sure I had a haircut. I'd always make sure that I looked presentable. And I would always make sure that when I went to see her, I planned to spend time with her and I would not be in a hurry to leave. I did not want to disrespect her.

So I may have done something the night before, but if I, it was always like an, almost like a calendar. I knew when it was time to go see her, if I went more than two weeks, it was a problem. Sometimes the junk had to pause because she was still a priority because if, if she didn't know I was okay, it would trouble her beyond measure.

And yet he put himself into situations that could trouble her. Well, I'd been off at the golf course of 19 years old and we were doing a big deal. So we went out to the golf course so we could sort of talk about it where no one, we knew no one was around because we knew we were being followed and watched. So my gun was in my golf bag. Other gun was under my bed.

And so I, but the World Series is on, so I have to get home in time to watch the game. So I leave my clubs in the car and run in the house and I turn the TV on, knock on the door. Guy says, I came to pay you. He owed me some money and he was late. And so I put the word out, whenever you see him, let him know that he owes me, he's late. And I got a deal with him. Once again, I knew the guy, I knew the kid. I, I, I started him off selling and now business dictated that because you didn't handle your part of it, I got to do something to you.

And you know what that meant. So then he gets someone along with some other people and they convinced this other person, okay, if you kill him, the problem will be solved. So this guy, Stevie comes, I don't even know the guy, never seen him before in my life, but he's with this guy that owed me the money. And they come in, I said, well, sit down. Cause I'm watching a game and I needed to really process what I was going to have. I had to do something. I sort of liked the guy, but I knew I had to do something because personally I liked him.

Business dictated I had to do something to him. And as I'm sitting there, he sort of makes a motion like he's pulling the trigger with a finger and the guy he's with, while I'm watching the world series, he just gets up and takes a gun and start shooting me. And so no gun up under my, uh, couch, no, no gun in the living room. Uh, so now I'm dodging, trying to dodge bullets and I grab a coffee table. The bullet goes through a coffee table. It hits me and he has six bullets in the gun. He hits me all six times. I'm shot in my face, my neck, my shoulder, my back. Cause I'm sort of turning and spinning. And one bullet goes in and comes back out.

So I have seven holes in me. And then he stands on me clicking the gun and the guy that brought them there. So come on, let's go.

He's done. And they walk away and it doesn't get more compelling than this folks. You're seeing it, you're feeling it, you're hearing it from Earl Smith, the consequence of many bad decisions and the consequence of the abandonment of love from a young man. And these are the things that happen. These are the stories that you hear here regularly.

And we tell them not to depress you and not to do anything that ultimately inspire. When we come back, you're going to hear the redemption story to follow. And it is remarkable because how one rises from this circumstance, my goodness, there is no worse circumstance perhaps than the one this young man is facing. And by the way, the way he was able to separate his life out and go see Osea and just sort of man up and straighten up. But then right back to the pull of that life, the only life he knew, the only life that was organized around any kind of meaning, camaraderie or all the other things we've heard countless times here, stories from gang members who say that that's the love they did not get from their family.

When we continue Earl Smith's story here on Our American Stories. And we continue with Our American Stories and with gang member Earl Smith's story, finally being on the receiving end of gunfire. The other part that really was sort of weird, when you're on the other end of the gun, when you're firing it and you feel the vibration in your hand as you pull the trigger and the sound sort of travels through your hand, through your arm up into your ears and into your heart, the sound of a gun when you shoot it actually almost, it seems like for me it was hitting my heart and it became part of that. But now I'm getting shot and I know exactly how some people must have felt. When you get shot, it's just like you have a poker, a hot poker that's been sitting in fire that is poked into different parts of your body. And the only thing I kept thinking is I need water, I'm hot, I'm burning up, I'm burning up, I need water, I need water. It was just like these hot pokers were like in my face, there were hot pokers where I had been shot and in my neck there's hot pokers and I'm just like someone has taken a branding iron poker and poked it all the way into me so it went through me and it stopped at a point and that point it stopped at is like I'm on fire. But I'm not on fire in one spot, I'm on fire in a lot of spots at the same time. And it's almost like you would take a flame and put it inside of someone's body and allow it to continue to burn.

I mean think about this. So the police have me under surveillance, they're getting ready to bust me. So they're on a corner, an unmarked car, these guys come in, I'm shot numerous times.

My neighbor said they didn't know if it was firecrackers or what was going on, they could just hear bam, bam, bam. And then they leave and they walk out, still under surveillance on the corner over there. I get up, I knock on my neighbor's door and say can you call the police, I've been shot. She starts screaming, she calls the police, they're there in no time at all because wow, of course they're going to be there in no time at all. They come in, they walk right past me, they don't say a word to me. They start going through my house, then they leave. Another set comes in and the lady, Ms. Lorraine says well where's the ambulance? And I heard them tell her lady if you want an ambulance for him, you call him. And that's the thing that people don't understand, there comes a point when even the authorities get tired of you. They get tired of what you're getting away with.

And at some point they believe that death is the easiest thing to deal with because they no longer have to deal with a person like me. So she had to call the ambulance and I'm on this gurney and they make it real clear that I'm not going to make it. They make it very clear and I just need to tell the police who shot me. I wasn't going to tell, I had no intention of telling. And Dr. Morris, he says, I don't know what's wrong with you people. It was another person that was laying on a gurney in his emergency room and the police were saying tell us who did it.

It was like, and it's sort of crazy, but it's not crazy. I'd rather die and at least they could say he didn't tell. Wow man, what a great name.

He went to the grave without telling. What kind of badge is that? What badge did you get for that? But when you grow up a certain way, that's what you believe in me saying I'm going to die or whatever. Here's the deal about that, that I tell people I deserve to die for what the things I was involved in, the things that I had done up to that point. I fully understood I deserved it and I deserved what the doctor said. I deserved that.

I deserved whatever would have taken place in that day because I had worked really hard to get to that point. My dad comes in and he asked Dr. Morris, see how bad is he? He says he ain't, he's not going to make it. And my dad grabs him around the collar very gently, but he pulls him close to him and he pulled him close to me. He says, doc, you better do what you do best and I'm going to go do what I do best. He left me on that gurney, but he left me to go pray.

With the understanding that that doctor's job was to help me. If you think about my dad having this significant name in the community. His dad was a union leader.

The chief of police knows who he is. John McFall, who was majority whipping Congress back in those days, would come to the house and visit with my dad. And I called him Uncle John and Senators Kranz and I, a coward, they would come because they needed my dad's support for stuff.

So he was significant. But when I got shot, my dad said, son, this is bad. We're going to make it. He said, son, you're a rebel, but you're God's rebel and we're going to get through this.

He didn't say you. He said, we're. That was the love he had for me. He was wounded because I was wounded and I wasn't going to get through it. We were going to get through it.

That was the day. That's my dad. And in between those exits of the doctor going back wherever he went and my dad going to pray and there I'm just laying there all, you know, I'm laying there waiting to die. That's what they're waiting on me to die. And then this voice says to me, you're not going to die. I have something for you to do.

I started laughing. The something must be a chaplain in San Quentin, the prison that's home to the largest death row in America. That's what he told me. So I'm sort of shaking down and they have these monitors on me and the doctor comes in. I said, Doc, if I tell you where the bullets are, will it help? Now remember, my dad's over there praying.

He's nowhere at this point now, but he's praying. And the doctor says, no. I said, so I pointed at my nose.

I said, it's right here. And the bleeding stops. And as I started to point to where the bullets were, the bleeding stopped. I believe the combination of that doctor leaving the voice of the Lord telling me, I'm not going to die.

I have something for you to do. My dad, awake praying, he had enough confidence in who God was that he could talk to God and trust that God was going to take care of this, his son that was a rebel. And so he was not afraid to leave because he had confidence that God could do what he could only do best. And three days later, my dad picks me up from the hospital, parks a car that gets me in the car. And you think that was cool. My dad can go back to what he's doing. No, you know what my dad did every day after that till I got up and strong enough. My dad sat in a chair at the door of my bedroom. And every time I woke up, I saw my dad sitting there with his gun. Now, when I slept, I don't know what he did, but I can tell you this. When I was awoke, my dad would sit. When I look, he would be in that chair. He was guarding me.

He's making sure that this thing didn't happen again. And that was my dad. And after all the embarrassments I'd done, I was embarrassed. I did some crazy things. And my dad kept loving me in spite of it, kept loving me.

And what a story you're hearing. I'm on fire, like taking flames and putting them inside a body, he said, describing what it feels like to get shot. And he recalled being on that gurney, not thinking he was going to make it. I deserve to die, he said. I deserved whatever would have taken place on that day. And there was his dad, a prayer warrior. When I got shot, dad said, we're going to make it. You're a rebel, but you're God's rebel.

You're going to make it. And that we, folks, that we meant so much to this boy. I did some crazy things in my life, but my dad kept loving me in spite of it. When we come back, more of this remarkable story, Earl Smith's story, and my goodness, what every dad can learn, listening to this story as well, and mom, this is our American stories.

And we continue with our American stories and with gang member Earl Smith's story. After being shot, Earl says he heard the voice of God and it led him to head to Bishop College in Dallas to study religion and become a prison chaplain. But his counselors there told him that this goal was unrealistic given his criminal background. So they advised him to take a job with the Boy Scouts of America. People that say, well, that God voice thing is crazy.

It didn't happen. Here's what I need them to understand. In October of 1975, God says to me, you're not going to die. You're going to be a chaplain in San Quentin Prison.

I'll tell you how God works. I'm at a service club for Kiwanis. Buzz Brewer, who worked for the Salvation Army as a correctional chaplain, says, hey, didn't you say you want to be a prison chaplain? I said, yeah, you know how you do an introduction at the Kiwanis Club to tell who you are and what you're interested in.

And he remembered that. He says, well, there's an opening at San Quentin. You should apply. He says, they said they're going to hire this other guy, but at least you could apply. And I said, OK. He comes back three weeks later and says, hey, did you ever apply? I said, nah, not yet. I'm going to get around to it.

He says, I didn't think so. Here's the application. Fill it out. I fill the application out. I get a response from the state personnel board, and it says, Dear Reverend Smith, I'm sorry to inform you that you do not meet the minimum requirements for the position. I ball it up, throw the paper down, and the voice of the Lord says once again, call up a mass on what you need to do.

It's a test. I unball the paper. I call this number on the paper.

There's a silent voice on the other end, and then the lady says, Reverend Smith, we're very sorry. We sent you the wrong letter. You are qualified. Well, I was qualified at 75 the night I got shot, and he said that's what I was going to do. I get the new letter. I go to the interview. The guy that they're going to hire says, are you here for San Quentin? I said, yeah.

He says, well, you can forget it. They've already promised me the job. Well, here's the way it worked. He worked there for five and a half months on probation, and then they decided not to hire him. When they decided not to hire him, they then called me and asked me, was I still interested? The guy that they decided not to hire became a volunteer that I trained, and he became a phenomenal chaplain.

We both agreed. It was not that he was not qualified to be a chaplain. He was just at a place that God had already reserved for me. Whatever you say about the voice, exactly what I told people God said is what happened.

When you put it all together, wouldn't you believe that God, you'd have to believe that voice too, wouldn't you? When I'm hired to go to work there, I remember walking into the chapel, and I look around. As I'm walking in, I see a guy making a drug transaction over by the bathroom.

I see something else taking place. Then I realize, thank you, God, this is where I need to be, because everything I saw, I could understand. So I started going out and talking to guys.

I had no problem talking to gang leaders. That was the training I had. Then that December of my first year there, I'm still six months in. I still haven't done my six months probation. I'm giving out Christmas cards on my unit.

I'm giving these Christmas cards out. I saw a guy once when he shot me. I saw him once in court. I didn't testify against him because I wanted to kill him, but I needed him on the street. The third time I see this guy in my entire life, he's now on the second tier of North Block in San Quentin, and no one knows he's the guy that shot me. I don't know that he's there until I'm giving out Christmas cards.

I remember, and I'm only telling the story because it's part of what God can do in bringing things to pass and making clarity out of rough situations. You think that you're okay. You think that God has really gotten you smooth. I'm a chaplain now. So what if I was a drug dealer? So what if I'm a gang member?

So what if I've done all that other stuff? God has blessed me beyond measure. Then all of a sudden, here's what happens. I see this guy, and when I see this guy, I realize I really had not forgiven him. I was angry. I looked at him. He jumped away from the bars. He said, hey, man, I got shot too because I knew that a guy knew shot him. The guy that shot him recently died in prison. He was doing a life sentence.

So he gets away from the bars. I keep on giving out these Christmas cards. I'm crying now because I realize I really have not forgiven this guy. Now he's in a situation. All I need to do is tell somebody from home that's the guy that shot me, and it's a done deal. I was thinking, God, why would you make me feel I was okay, that everything was all right to get me to this point?

Now I'm going to have him killed. I mean, you think about this. You learn about all these things if you go to college or seminary. Forgiveness is this, and you release it. You forgive, and you forgive. How many times have you heard forgive and forgive? Well, it sounds good, but when you're confronted by that thing that's caused you harm or pain is when you realize, do you forgive? And even in the midst of your forgiveness, have you really forgotten?

For me, it was not only had I not forgiven, but forgetting about it was for removed because when I saw him, I realized that he had got away with doing something to me that I had not retaliated for. And I'm a chaplain, and I'm thinking like that, and I'm thinking, God, why did you let me get here to think like this? That was the kind of thinking, thinking that I had when I was in the world. And here I was thinking that same way as soon as I saw him. And it was a very scary moment for me, and that's why I just cried.

I was just like, what is going on? Why would you let this guy be here? Why would you allow me to be confronted with him knowing that I really had not forgiven?

Why would you make me think I forgave him? You ever have a conversation with God where you're trying to rationalize what you're dealing with, and it's almost like you're angry with God because you can't understand why God would make you feel like you were further along than you really are. And you're troubled by the fact that you're not as for long as you thought you were. And that's when I saw that guy, that's where I was. The thing that's so great about God is he takes you to the end and calls you to have to pass over that thing to get back off.

Sometimes you get to the end and to get away, you have to go back or pass the thing that you crossed over on the journey. And as I go back in front of this guy, look at him. And I said, I need to say something to you.

And he's, he's terrified basically. I said, I need to thank you because God used you to get to be. I don't even know where those words came from. I left there. I went to my chapel. I sat down in my chair in my office and I just started crying. Well, what I didn't know is he wrote a letter to the warden and says, you've got to get me out of this prison. The chaplain's going to have me killed. So they called me in for an investigation. They said, do you know this guy? I said, yeah, I just realized he's here. Well, he wrote this letter saying you're going to have him killed. And I said, and it was George Jackson who was the associate warden that was over, that was my boss. And I said, Mr. Jackson, I'll tell you this. Right now today, this is the safest place that guy will ever be because he's not a threat to me.

The only thing I want him to know is who Jesus is. And he looks at me and remember I'm on probation. They could have did me like they did Leonard and just say, okay, go home. We're not going to hire you. But you know what they did?

This is the week of Christmas. They put him in a special transport and sent him to another prison so I could stay there. Now, what if I would have had any other reaction other than the one I had when I encountered him?

And I believe that was another test because from there, God just, he did so many amazing things at that prison, amazing things. But what happens with that test if I say, well, you know what? I'm going to have my people get to you. I'm going to have my people do this to you or something like that.

What if I did that? But instead I said what God had placed on my heart to say to him. And I believe that was the reason why I was able to stay at San Quentin because I passed that test. When you're listening to Earl Smith's story and those words he heard on October of 1975, God says to me, you're not going to die. You're going to be a chaplain at San Quentin prison. And it happened. By the way, there's so much more to Earl Smith's story that you can read about in his powerful book titled Death Row Chaplain, Unbelievable True Stories from America's Most Notorious Prison.

Get it at Amazon.com today. And at the very beginning of the story, he teased that Earl worked at the highest levels of two radically different and yet similar jobs, one as a chaplain for San Quentin's prisoners and the other as the chaplain for millionaire athletes. Earl was the chaplain for the San Francisco Giants, and he is still the chaplain for the Golden State Warriors and the 49ers. But millionaire athletes and prisoners often come from the very same neighborhoods and are dealing with the very same human brokenness. That affect us all. Earl Smith's story here on Our American Story.