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Speaker shares life story
In the depths of a Texas prison, Damon West set out to survive one of the roughest places in America and change his life for the better at the same time.
West shared his life story at a LEADERship Ashtabula County event on Tuesday night at SPIRE Academy. The event took place in response to an interest in motivational speakers, said LEADERship Ashtabula County Executive Director Kelli Jones.
“We were so fortunate to have this opportunity to bring in this speaker with a story of hope and resilience to our community. We had over 330 register for the event and after hearing him speak … I had people share with me that they wish they could have brought 30 more friends with them to hear him speak,” she said.
West beat the racism and hate the prison percolates, and did it with a smile.
West said he started out with all the privileges of a white, middle-class family and ended up a starting quarterback at the University of Texas where faced Texas A.M., where an injury ended his sports career.
West said he graduated from college and ended up with a job in investment banking, where he was introduced to crystal meth and his life went off the rails.
He said within 18 months he lost his job, his possessions and eventually his family. West said he lived on the street, in people’s cars and started robbing homes to pay for his addiction.
West led a group of fellow addicts that ran a ring of robbers and was eventually cracked and he found himself in a six-day trial that resulted in a jury handing down a 65-year sentence after he was held on $1.4 million bail.
West said nobody was hurt but many people were victimized and the jury was irate. He said his family raised him well and his identity was tied too closely to his athletic performance.
A life was changed at the point of a gun, West said. “My angels didn’t have wings, they had rifles,” he said of the police who arrested him.
West said his mother told him he needed to pay his debt to society and to his parents. She said he needed to stay out of racist gangs, refrain from getting tattoos and come back as the man they raised.
That challenge hit him hard and he said a prisoner from Dallas gave him a primer on how to be his own man, including the possibility of fighting Aryan gangs, then fighting Black gangs before finding his way to be his own man.
West said he fought white gangs for two weeks, Black gangs for four weeks before he was accepted by all the groups and eventually becoming a positive influence in the prison.
The prison board showed up seven years into his term, impressed with the changes in his life and the prison, and offered him a chance to change the world from the outside.
West went back to school and earned a Master’s degree and is now a criminal justice professor. He speaks at prisons throughout the country and has written a book.
The event was free to the public and made possible by community organizations that spread the word, Jones said. She said West also spoke to Ashtabula Area City Schools students on Wednesday.
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