My Truth Behind Bars

By Sr. David Iván Gálvez C.

This book was developed during the six and a half years (2014-2020) that I remained unjustly incarcerated in four state prisons: San Quentin, Pelican Bay, Stockton, and Mule Creek, California. For a horrendous crime I did not commit, and I was practically compelled to testify otherwise. In the following texts, I will weave bitter dawns behind ce

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Publishing Lab
• Release date: May 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869352507

Book preview

~Dedication~

To my beloved children: David Jr.; Katherinne (Kat); Jenny and Albertito. To my grandchildren: Karina; Max and Luna Sarai. 

The important and the best thing about my life is to live by, with and for them.

To my beloved parents: Galo E. Galvez R.; Maria Esmeralda Cervantes P. (In memory)

Because they were the pinnacles of my successes and the eternal consolation for my failures. 

To my dear siblings: Jeannette, Patricio, Liliana, and Galo.

To two very special persons: My dear brother-in-law: Pablo Almeida G. (In memory) And to my endless friend, Monica Farfan.

~About the Author~

David Ivan Galvez C., Sr.: Journalist and Author. Native of Quito, Ecuador. He immigrated to The United States in 1972. His academic education took place in the Northern and Southern States of California. Achieving degrees in Business Administration, Electrical-Mechanical Design Drafting engineering, Mass Communication and Real Estate. For two decades, he worked as a columnist for the newspaper ‘La Oferta Review.’ Managed as an Assistant to the Media Department and was then promoted to Media Director for a Professional Futbol - MLS Team in San Jose, California.

His hobbies are reading and writing. Lover of Culinary Art. 

Divorced, four children and three grandchildren. He resides in Chino, California.

~Gratitude~

The unconditional love, loyalty, and spiritual support of my daughter Katherinne, who, amid suffering, managed to give me the strength, love and patience I needed in those difficult years.

To my dear soul brother Patricio, who, with his patience and wisdom, managed to courageously bear my concerns embodied in my manuscripts and transcribe them in this format because of the lack of my insufficient eyesight. My infinite gratitude.

To an exceptional woman who was there and there 365 days a year; for seven consecutive years, without letting a single day pass her concern for me. She was the source of income, organizing weekend meal affairs so I could have some extra provisions, personal items, and even a TV during my incarceration. I was and am fortunate and blessed to have Monica Farfan, in those moments of adversity. So grateful to Monica for listening day-by-day throughout my happiness and sadness!

My gratitude to all my endless dear friends for joining with such enthusiasm to the proposal. Life has been so generous; that’s why I’m so grateful. Life will not be enough to Thank you for what you have done for me and for so many, many years of friendship!

I thank my family, my sister Jeannette and Liliana, my brother Galo, my brother-in-love Gustavo, my nephews Gustavo, Andre and Juanito for their constant spiritual and moral support.

My deep gratefulness to my dear friend Xavier Toscano for his persistence and generosity towards me, managed to help me in the design of the cover of this book, Spanish and English versions.

~Prologue~

Because man was born to die, but not to live without freedom.

This book was developed during the six and a half years 2014-2020 that I remained unjustly imprisoned for a horrendous crime I did not commit and was practically forced to declare otherwise. 

In the following contents, I’m going to weave together bitter dawns little-by-little behind prison cell. That describes everyday events, moments, and stages of my life, difficult to accept, difficult to conceive, of a simple man taken to an extreme of his human condition.

The context is narratives, experiences, and anecdotes related mainly to topics about security knowledge and crimes. 

In addition to the experiences that I lived, what has marked this story that I externalize are two: the first, the prison and its dynamics in particular and interact the prisoners, and the second, attitudes and clairvoyance mainly, the institutional functioning as a reaction to these and the attitudes and perceptions of violent juvenile and adult offenders that revealed with it a considerable variety of activities typical of their daily routines -, and also in that environment that I lived against my will.

For me, both experiences were very succulent because I achieved some closeness with this type of extremely dangerous individuals, and they provided me with a framework of practical information. 

There were so many routines that led me to change many knowledge and theoretical reflections that had guided me in the exercise of my profession. 

Likewise, I was uncomfortable with overturning these regimented and methodologically correct styles since I was certain that these realities could not be translated into simple subjects and objects of memory.

What to do, then, in the face of the imminence that the method that I embraced as a prisoner would make me lose the essence of the new wisdom found? 

My answer was that I decided to take a chance.

Beyond words, series, and specific meanings, I have convinced myself that the best way to express reality was to expose it as such without filtering it in methods or operations, and I opted for a story that transfigured and adapted a certain reality to a general language, extendable y apprehensible for everyone: I found the literary language.

I do not dare to call this text either as a legend or as an experience, but I did find in these lines a bit of both genres. 

All theories are legitimate, and none matter. What matters is what you do with them. (Jorge Luis Borges)

However, despite the enrichment of these experiences, both ended abruptly. I stopped the prison investigation because of limited access to this type of institution, and, in the second case, a situation that represented a high risk to my life forced me not to continue with this line. But, after several days, I was again able to access individuals with the same behavioral pattern as those in the second case, who, in addition to being offenders on the street, had a quality that the others I was able to work with did not have: they had been imprisoned. 

Therefore, my two lines of research led to three specific cases with which I could return to many things. However, trouble arose when dealing with the cases: I could not give their names. It was their condition, and I had to respect it.

After three or four dialogue sessions, I gathered an extensive body of information, taken as faithfully as I could in notes at the time of interviewing and then finalized in manuscripts where I reconstructed all the information. Despite being happy with the fidelity with which I wrote the information, nevertheless, I was not happy with the method that wisely allowed much of its essence could be lost.

Despite the circumstances in which I found myself and the danger of the areas where I lived in four different state prisons, one of them being the most dangerous: Pelican Bay of the State of California. 

All this injustice began on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, and ended on Saturday, September 19, 2020. 

As a journalist for more than two decades, and in recent years, I have begun to understand that the methodologies with which we scientifically observe reality are nothing more than ways of interpreting and constructing it because, in short, the reality is not presented in a structured way, neither in operational terms nor even less, quantitative, or qualitative. In addition to this, reality does not seem to fit a theoretical or methodological context in which theory and methodology are beginning to seem to me a formal way to compensate for social heterogeneity, and it reduces to little the conflict in which reality moves, in which theory is only a way of explaining simple parts and leaving to the uncertain the rest that does not apply. That is the task of a journalist in captivity.

It is worth noting that everything narrated is personal in the TypoScript you will read because my influence was simply to try to make sense of the reflections that the cases made me in such a way that instead of weaving a reflection with curses and obscene words, I present it a little more refined and, as I mentioned, understandable for general public, to whom the message and content of the following texts can allow you to reflect truthfully on me, without methodological or theoretical intermediations. 

In this way, I give a narrative-literary sense to them, of freedom since I am not a literary writer. Maybe as a teenager, I had such a quality, but I lost it in the brokenness of a poet child; that’s what my beloved uncle called me, Dr. Nestor Cervantes P. and that gradually was born in me. 

Despite this, I do not deny my taste for authors such as Garcia Marquez, Quiroga, Dumas, Guillermo Meneses, Vargas Llosa, Borges, Cortazar, Sabato, Dan Brown, and Michael Connelly, among others. Therefore, in the text that follows, you will find an approximation (more distant than close) to the style of these great authors, especially Garcia Marquez, Connelly and Sabato. 

Asking if the information presented is real, valid, or accurate seems to me to be a bit absurd because my intention is not to give explanations or theoretical or methodological constructions but experiences, which, as such, must be read and reflected. The idea, rather than understanding the reason for what is presented, is to know what is presented, which, in a way, will not be the reality in which we all live but in which we exist.

If you’re looking for a secret, this isn’t a book for you.

But the worst does not happen around me but inside me, because my own self suddenly began to deform, to stretch, to metamorphose. (Ernesto Sabato)

Table of Contents

~Dedication~

~About the Author~

~Gratitude~

~Prologue~

~ Chapter I ~

~Chapter II~

~Chapter III~

~Chapter IV~

~Chapter V~

~Chapter VI~

~Chapter VII~

~Chapter VIII~

~Chapter IX~

~Chapter X~

~Chapter XI~

~Chapter XII~

~Chapter XIII~

~Chapter XIV~

~Chapter XV~

~Chapter XVI~

~Chapter XVII~

~Chapter XVIII~

~Chapter XIX~

~Chapter XX~

~Chapter XXI~

~Chapter XXII~

~Chapter XXIII~

~Chapter XXIV~

~Chapter XXV~

~Chapter XXVI~

~Chapter XXVII~

~Chapter XXVIII~

~Chapter XXIX~

~Chapter XXX~

~Chapter XXXI~

~Chapter XXXII~

~Chapter XXXIII~

~Chapter XXXIV~

~Chapter XXXV~

~Chapter XXXVI~

~Chapter XXXVII~

~Chapter XXXVIII~

~Chapter XXXIX~

~Chapter XL~

~Chapter XLI~

~Chapter XLII~

~Chapter XLIII~

~Chapter XLIV~

~Chapter XLV~

~Chapter XLVI~

~Chapter XLVII~

~Chapter XLVIII~

~Chapter XLIX~

~Chapter L~

~Chapter LI~

~Chapter LII~

~Chapter LIII~

~ Chapter I ~

What does freedom mean? A question whose answers can fill whole copies of letters and conjectures that, in the end, mean nothing because freedom, in practice, has no value for anyone unless he or she has lived without it. 

But what does it mean to live without freedom? Even the protest oppression, the struggle for freedom and many other examples are ways of manifesting freedom where the fact of crying out and fighting for it is a form of freedom. 

Freedom takes on value and meaning only for those who, strictly, have lived without it, and to live without freedom implies adapting to a way of living and being in which not only man loses independence over himself but also ceases to be himself to become what the environment demands of him to be to obtain freedom and not lose his life. In other words, only those who have lived in an ambiguous world, in a world alien to themselves and who have ceased to be what they are to live and be free, as we all understand, can have an idea, clear, of what freedom means. 

That is, only those who have lived behind bars know how sad it is to live without freedom, know that freedom is worth what life is worth, their own and that of others, and know that freedom is our narcissistic good: only valued when you do not have it. But some men lock themselves behind mental, moral, and even social bars, which in a certain way limit their freedom and torment their desire to live, bars that, in many cases, are voluntarily imposed by the men themselves. Therefore, their lack of freedom is absurd because they are so free that they have the possibility of closing themselves on their own. 

Others, on the other hand, suffer the penalty of a freedom abolished involuntarily in the name of justice, justice whose name and manner of action are simply contradictory to freedom itself. Justice without meaning and emanating in the name of God and the Community are nothing more than simple ways of contradicting the freedom of men. That justice that closes the bars on the face and on those bars, first physical and then mental. It’s calling the conscience.

In the following chapters, you will find a live truth account of what really happened behind those metal bars in the prison system.

~Chapter II~

These stories were transformed into a compendium, thanks to the tenacity of a person like me, with the hope that one day they will see a truth unveiled, and by the fact of patiently assembling a handwritten portrait of a simple man, a man without a criminal record, an innocent man, charged with a felony; under the code of murder in the first degree: PC 187 (Penal Code 187 Murder -, awarded double-red uniform)

In this Observation and Classification Center, where day-by-day, we struggle to survive with highly dangerous prisoners. In the most adverse conditions of confinement, I managed to record conversations, stories, crimes, lies, etc.

But before delving into the causes of my confinement, I concentrated on obtaining a record of life from inside the prison.

Without getting rid of myself and totally unprotected and finally dictated by the prosecutor (DA) of that jurisdiction.

I am a parent, I am a husband, I am a brother, I am a son - however, I am not a criminal nor a murderer.

Now, I was already admitted to this maximum-security jail, classified as a dangerous subject, in the middle of a process plagued by inconsistencies. 

In the same facilities of the Gilroy Police Department (GPD), a police officer searched me; then I was handcuffed, waist and ankles. In a van, they took me to the maximum-security checkpoint in Santa Clara. 

Upon arriving and entering the facility, they took me to a room after they booked me and made me remove all my clothes -in front of three mocking police officers for the sole purpose of humiliating me.

At the time having arrived at this place and after they took my photo, fingerprints, etc. - one of the officer’s young lads, about 20 years old, welcomed me with his words, sarcastic, showing a mocking smile, saying: - Huh! 187, you set here for a long-time, you fricking animal … Fortunately, another guard approached him and surprised him by saying: Be careful with this guy (referring to me). He is a journalist…

The young officer was the macho type, mocking and sarcastic, then his appearance became nervous and turned pale like a whiter piece of paper. However, that didn’t stop the humiliation, and he continued with his derogatory rhetoric.

- Raise your arms, turn around and open your anu, your animal, turn around and raise your testicles…

In a commanding tone of voice, one of them spoke while the others mocked. My mind seeks the reason for that kind of treatment; why me? Why did the state unleash its wrath against me?

Perhaps, the Sergeant said, saved me from a worse treatment than I had received. However, after having obtained my identification number, things were no different, you will be seen as a criminal of maximum dangerousness, a candidate for prison for life.

This situation caught my attention, and I preferred to remain silent. Nevertheless, I was surprised that someone could classify another human being without any proof, and that person never imagined being offended in such a way and subjected to social and prison humiliation.

It seems that it was part of revenge or diabolical sabotage of unscrupulous people, and, most of all, you did not know exactly where it came from, but that undoubtedly came from the falsehoods infused by Aleman’s lawyer. 

There was nothing I could do; I was already in one of the cells of the Maximum-Security County Main Jail. Accused of a serious crime that I did not commit -embarrassed and mistreated by certain officers who break the code of human rights because, for them, the one who falls here is simply another criminal.

During my stay in ward 4B cell number 1 where I stayed for about 25 days.

Despite having three days a week for personal hygiene, I still could not access phone calls; however, I managed to get a call to my mother. Having behaved well, I was given the opportunity to do so -I managed to communicate with my brothers Lili, Jeannette and Galo through a friend I have valued for many years, Monica.

I did not manage to communicate with the rest of my family; even so, from my cold cell, they were always in my prayers, and it was for them and for all my friends who believed in my innocence that I managed to maintain my stance.

It is worth mentioning that my behavior during that brief time showed that I was not that paid killer as I was identified, and little by little, I was gaining respect.

To my surprise, on January 9, 2015, I was relocated to ward 7B, cell number 26, along with a guy from India of about 25 years old.

My new cell was nothing different from the one I was before, perhaps a little cleaner, but dustier, without a mattress, two sheets and a quilt with holes from the Dante era of the mythology of The Count of Monte Cristo. 

A cold iron bunk, attached to the concrete wall, but identical to the previous one… I didn’t feel strange, especially since from the moment I arrived, someone inside his cell welcomed me to hell.

The characteristic of pavilion 7B is thirty-six cells, each measuring 12x6 -twelve single and twenty-four double cells. Supposedly award for less problematic prisoners is called General Population (GP). During the week, they ran programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), and Anger Management. However, the violence of certain inmates did not cease to be present, sometimes ending in fatality. Not counting the brutality and overpowering of the correctional officers.

The age difference is extremely complicated, especially between diverse cultures; that happens to me because of my inmate, a 25-year-old lad from India -, so I preferred to request for move. There were no hurdles, and I was sent to a single cell on the ground floor.

I was new to that pavilion, and as such, I was flooded with questions regarding my origin, my process, my accusations, my friends, and the personal version of the facts I was facing.

- … And surely you are innocent… Like all those who arrive here, who first walk around like cowering and then lament and claim that they have done nothing. Somebody mentioned from the back inside of his cell, one who said his name was Alejandro Cortez.       

Days later, I met Salvador Pablo, of Mexican origin, 43 years old - pending his trial, he was extradited from his town of Aguascalientes, better known among the inmates as Pablo. He faces criminal prosecution, with the risk of at least 25 years to live in State Prison. He has been there for two years, separated from his wife of 36 years, two children -a 12-year-old girl and his 10-year-old son. His wife had to take all responsibility for the household.

- When they captured me, I managed to tell my vieja (wife) to find a job and try not to lose the house. He shouted, then I asked him: - How are they? Then he went on to say: - They, my children, who keep me hoping to get out of this crime that they accuse me. And on top of that my old lady got herself another ox because she couldn’t handle the responsibility of the household.

- Pablo, what are they accusing you of? I asked out of curiosity.

- Ah, what kind of question of yours, you fricking journalist, but I’m going to answer you, idiot, because I like you. You’re cool.

But Pablo was the