Raised by the System: Until he Snapped

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Uh, so right now I'm in uh, Lacey area at D Trade's mobile home park. Uh, this place is pretty off the hook.

[00:00:08]Uh, most of the spots I grew up in were pretty off the hook, but this one more personal because I lost my brother.

[00:00:14]He uh, ended up uh, killing himself.

[00:00:17]At number 88, I believe, if my memory serves me correctly.

[00:00:22]Uh, we had a standoff with law enforcement.

[00:00:24]I think there was like five different agencies that were involved. It started with SWAT team.

[00:00:29]Uh, dolls.

[00:00:31]It was a very, very surreal moment in my life, for sure.

[00:00:34]Uh, got placed in the foster care system in 1994 of April. Uh, within my first year, I probably lived in at least 12 different foster homes within my first year. Bounced around, bounced around. My two little brothers, Jeremiah and Jesse, uh, they were younger, like 1 or 2 years old, so it's easier to place a young child and they got to stay together.

[00:00:53]That was That was awesome. My sister, she got to find a foster home. She got adopted. In 1996, Washington's foster care system didn't just grow, it exploded.

[00:01:05]In a single year, the number of children in foster care surged to over 8,300.

[00:01:12]That's a jump of more than 20% practically overnight.

[00:01:18]This wasn't just a statistic. It was thousands of children removed from their homes, their schools, their lives.

[00:01:26]Now, methamphetamine was spreading rapidly across communities all across the West Coast and Midwest.

[00:01:33]It was cheap, addictive, and devastating.

[00:01:37]Parents disappeared into addictions.

[00:01:40]Homes became unsafe and the system was forced to respond.

[00:01:45]The unfortunate part is that uh, you're when you talk about the foster care system or something like that, um, a lot of people didn't want to deal with uh, children that that had been exposed to meth labs because of they didn't want to be exposed, right?

[00:02:04]They didn't want to have to worry about [music] being exposed to what the meth effects were or didn't know enough about it. Um, and uh, you would get a lot of um, uh, child protective service people out there and their job was just to try to find somebody that that that child could go to. Sheriff Snaza, he'll always be a sheriff in my view cuz John Snaza is a good, good, good individual and has a compassion.

[00:02:32]>> [music] >> And later, we were able to get uh, the child endangerment law, um, that I was fortunate enough to have the first child endangerment case in the state of Washington, um, where uh, the person was held accountable for exposing your son to uh, a meth lab.

[00:02:52]By 1997, law enforcement officers entering clandestine meth labs frequently [music] discovered young kids exposed to toxic fumes and dangerous environments.

[00:03:04]A silent epidemic of poisoning [music] unfolding behind closed doors.

[00:03:10]When police raided these houses, the scenes were often heartbreaking.

[00:03:15]Officers and child welfare workers would remove children from homes contaminated by meth production, sometimes in the middle of the night.

[00:03:25]Those kids were placed into Washington's foster care system while the courts sorted out what would happen to their families.

[00:03:32]For many children in the '90s, the meth epidemic didn't just destroy their community.

[00:03:38]It took them out of their homes and changed the course of their childhoods [music] forever.

[00:03:44]We would get notified, you know, at any time of day and I got notified that there was a sibling group that needed a home, that there wasn't any food in the house and that the parents had been uh, cooking meth.

[00:03:55]Um, so they came in and and right away we noticed that JD tend to be the um, more of a parent to his siblings than he was a kid. He would always hover over them making sure they're doing okay, wanting to make sure that um, you know, they weren't getting hurt, they were being kept safe.

[00:04:14]And uh, but also, of course, he was a very angry child at the at the beginning because um, he'd been taken from his parents and from his home.

[00:04:23]So, you know, I think that's very natural for any any child being taken into care that they're going to be angry.

[00:04:29]I was really mad, disgruntled, angry at being in the foster system, especially jumping around foster home to foster home to foster home. Uh, just being kicked around like you're trash, you know? That's how I seen it and so like people always tell you that they're going to be involved in your life, they want to be there for you, but that's not the truth. Then you start getting more abandonment issues and so you have a hard time trusting people and what they really have to say cuz they say things, but they don't really mean what they say.

[00:04:56]JD loves loved his mom and and it was very evident he would talk about her.

[00:05:01]And if there was something there that any if she if he ever heard anything that was negative, he would he would stand up for her.

[00:05:08]And uh, he was he's just always been that way.

[00:05:12]When I the whole time he was with us, he was very protective of his siblings, protective of his mom.

[00:05:19]Um, you know, when he left us, it was very it was very evident that he was was very upset that he didn't get to go home to mom, but he also >> [snorts] >> he was hopeful of the future, but you know, what went on from there, we never knew until later on.

[00:05:40]A study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2013 found that 50% of the homeless population spent time in foster care.

[00:05:49]For young men, the economic cost of the foster care to prison pipeline cost $5 billion a year. So, back in 1994, after being placed from foster home to foster home to foster home, uh, eventually got sent to Pierce County, Washington, uh, east side of Tacoma. Right behind me was the first home of a foster home that took me in, uh, with the intentions to adopt me. Um, we only stayed here for about a year, roughly, maybe a little more, then they ended up buying a home in uh, Steilacoom, Washington, which we'll go there next. Uh, I was a young kid at the time. I didn't really understand what kind of community this was until later on in life. So, in a blessing, I'm glad that my adopted parents who became uh, we ended up being transferred to Steilacoom, which uh, being a rebel kid and just being lost, I could have easily been caught up in the gang life life culture out here in Tacoma, Washington. So, in that regard, I'm I'm appreciative of them not allowing me to grow up in this community cuz we've seen uh, how devastating it was back in the '90s and early 2000s.

[00:06:46]So, when I got transferred from my foster parents' home, when they moved from east side of Tacoma out here, this is where I stayed until I got removed.

[00:06:54]With him being in the military, uh, it was all about uh, um, physical therapy uh, in regards to uh, push-ups, uh, decline push-ups, incline push-ups, having my hands out with big cans in my hand, holding them straight up. Uh, it was a good workout uh, and self-discipline and and whatnot. And I I I I looking back at it, it was good. Uh, but when you fall or you collapse, he'd pick you up and he'd force you to push-ups, slamming me in the face to the ground, kicking my ribs, uh, slapping me in the face, punching my ribs, punching my back. Um, it also led to where I used to run away and so that's what I used to do is like just run away and stuff like that and he would take my clothes to where I was doing these exercises. Uh, I'd have no clothes, so I'd be butt ass naked doing these these exercises in the house and even then, having enough, I'd still run away down the street butt ass naked.

[00:07:45]So, that's just just the way of me trying to escape um, and whatnot. But like it's just crazy looking back at it. I I don't know why he'd employ those kind of antics or tactics.

[00:07:54]Um, even in report reports that he he he thought he was doing what he thought was justifiable. Um, like I said, I think the system wasn't designed to teach foster parents, especially new foster parents, how to deal with uh, with a troubled kid, you know? And looking back at it, I probably deserved it. Uh, people say that's sort of victim says, but I don't see myself as a victim. I see myself as a survivor.

[00:08:17]And at the end of the day, uh, I was a knucklehead. I was very rebellious. I was very very angry child.

[00:08:24]Um, so I I I get how that can be hard for someone to try to raise an individual, a child that's out of control.

[00:08:32]So, I get that perspective. Um, spanking every now and then could be could be the best lesson. The last day of school that I came here was I came in a black eye, bruises on my face, scratches on my face, and a fat lip a bleeding lip. And uh, the counselor told me, "Hey, look, uh, we I've been doing a bunch of bunch of stuff. You're going to be talking CPS and uh, you're not going to go you're not going you're not going back to your your adopted home."

[00:08:58]I said, "That's cool. I appreciate that." And then CPS got involved. They took me out of that home, out of school, and they immediately put me into um, a foster home, a therapeutic foster home off of Lakewood off in Lakewood off 83rd Street.

[00:09:10]And uh, so that was the end of that chapter of being in that adopted home.

[00:09:15]And I think right after shortly after that, I ended up going to stay with my grandparents, which they had to go through some hoops and stuff at a Pierce County cuz that's where Steilacoom is, out of Pierce County.

[00:09:25]And I got to stay with my grandparents for a few about a year. In late '99, uh, came out here to live with my my grandparents. They lived in the house over there.

[00:09:37]And uh, I remember doing an article uh, playing Jenga with my grandparents.

[00:09:43]Uh, so yeah, that's that's that was cool cool time in my life. And then this area is pretty pretty prominent drugs and gangs, especially down on uh, 9th and Fern. It was pretty wild down there. African fist is right down there. Cambridge Court down there.

[00:09:58]That's It's just wild. So, it's a lot different nowadays, but back in the '90s, uh this is pretty much a hot spot, too. So.

[00:10:05]Olympia wasn't a gang stronghold, but it lived in the shadows of ones, caught between Tacoma and Seattle, where established sets and drug networks were already rooted.

[00:10:18]What showed up locally wasn't organized turf warfare as much as fragment satellite crews, affiliates, [music] and individuals moving up and down the I-5 corridor. It was less about colors and corners, and more about what stayed hidden.

[00:10:31]Quiet deals, backroom exchanges, and a drug trade that operated [music] under the surface rather than out in the open.

[00:10:39]Uh shortly after uh being involved with my older brothers in the drug trade and violence and victimizing the community, uh and just just being a terror and a tyrant. My name is Karen. Um I was JD's foster mom.

[00:10:54]I also worked for Thurston County um clerk's office, family juvenile court.

[00:11:00]My first impression was JD. I thought he was a very cute kid.

[00:11:03]Um great smile.

[00:11:05]Very playful.

[00:11:07]Um a little mischievous. Um but my husband and I um we liked him a lot. We we connected with him right away.

[00:11:15]Uh his grandparents um were really happy that he was with us and they got to be grandparents. They would pick him up on weekends. Um they would take him on outings.

[00:11:29]Um buy him like his expensive clothes and his cologne that he liked so much.

[00:11:33]Uh it was it was a good setup for him.

[00:11:35]When the kids got brought into our home, lots of times they came with their stuff in a black garbage bag, which it was troubling. Um their personal belongings were really important to them.

[00:11:48]And one of the um boys had gotten into JD's stuff, and that caused um a fight at the bus stop, and that would trigger some behaviors. You know, touch you know, touching his stuff. I mean, that was very important to him.

[00:12:05]Um when they decided um they were going to move JD um because of his fight, uh we had asked for a meeting with Catholic Community Services, and we had gone to their office, and they had a whole bunch of their um people there.

[00:12:23]And we had, you know, tried to get them to let him stay with us cuz he was doing so well.

[00:12:31]And they had told us that we we really weren't educated and we couldn't make those decisions and and he was going to be moved, and I really feel like that was a downfall for him.

[00:12:43]JD had been hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting into fights at school, but he was still unknown to law enforcement.

[00:12:51]This would all change one night in December of 2001, when JD and his friends committed two armed robberies.

[00:12:59]Pretty much the exact location where the pizza man came through uh for a uh a robbery.

[00:13:06]Uh we were over here in Evergreen Vista, uh where the apartment complex party was, and then we had him come over here to drop off pizza. When the pizza guy got there, he was pulled inside the apartment. He was robbed by JD and his friend for a hundred bucks and the pizza.

[00:13:22]Not long after that, JD, his friend Dennis, and a young girl walked in the convenience store on Cooper Point Road in Olympia.

[00:13:30]The group walked down some aisles and took food off the shelves, then walked up to the clerk counter.

[00:13:36]According to the local newspaper at the time, JD and his friends robbed the clerk for a hundred bucks and [music] some food from the store shelves.

[00:13:45]When the clerk started to follow the group out to their car, one of them fired a shot off to scare the clerk as they were getting away.

[00:13:53]The convenience store clerk then ran back inside and called the Olympia police.

[00:13:58]After these two incidents, the sheriff's department had enough evidence to put a warrant out for the arrest of JD and Dennis for the two armed robberies in Olympia and were actively looking for them.

[00:14:11]My last days of freedom leading up to the standoff back in 2001, uh Izzy's apartments that I knew too too well, uh on the west side of Olympia. They were called Forest Glen, but we called it Ghetto Glen.

[00:14:25]Uh it was a pretty wild uh living experience. Everything is pretty much segregated. You got the blacks up front.

[00:14:31]You got the white dudes in general area where I'm at right now. Then you got the Mexicans over there. Uh it was pretty high trafficking area for drugs, uh trafficking for uh prostitution, and uh it's just wild. Super super gang infested. Um it was pretty really bad to the point where law enforcement would stage outside at the auto mall.

[00:14:49]15-year-old JD and 24-year-old Dennis were now on the run.

[00:14:55]A couple weeks later, the two friends showed up at DeTray's Mobile Home Park to use someone's laundry and get some rest when the police were tipped off that the two were located there.

[00:15:06]According to the Olympian newspaper, around 10:20 a.m., sheriff's deputies went looking for Dennis and JD and tracked [music] them down in a trailer park in Lacey.

[00:15:17]When the sheriffs came to the door and confronted Dennis, he pulled out a gun, and he put it to his head and threatened to kill himself. The [music] newspaper said he then barricaded himself inside the trailer, and this is when the SWAT team was called in.

[00:15:31]December 28th, 2001, uh the cops started breach entry.

[00:15:35]Uh my brother shot at the police. They got back out because we had people actually in the apartment in the uh trailer trailer park.

[00:15:42]They vacated. They surrounded the house even more. They cut off the phone lines where it was a direct connection to where uh anytime you pick up the phone, the regular phone it goes strictly through the command 911 command center, hostage negotiation.

[00:15:57]And uh they tried to give us food, but I was like, "Fuck your food." cuz we've already heard stories of our previous friends who got caught in situations where they would lace food or drinks with uh a sleep agent to get you to be passed out. So, we didn't take none of their offers for food or drinks. They even shut off the water, turned off electricity. They'd do anything they can to try to coach us out of the place uh uh whatever. Uh they We also made sure that we kind of blocked off third act uh points in the living room because we know about concussion grenades. And so, what those are is uh it's the flashbang where they break breach a window, and then it's like I'm not quite sure how much uh decibels, but it's enough to knock you out and give them enough time to walk come in there and storm the place and and and apprehend you. So, we're already familiar with a lot of that stuff. So, uh I said I was 15 to to ex- experience some of this.

[00:16:50]Um they they didn't push any uh conc- uh They didn't put any of those uh devices inside the the place.

[00:17:00]Uh but looking around like, "Holy [ __ ] like we're surrounded with SWAT team."

[00:17:04]Pretty intense.

[00:17:05]Uh my brother at the time, uh he was out on bail for organized crime, a couple bank robberies and a potential murder that they had him under investigation with out of Wyoming, and but he was out of bail. He was on bail out of Thurston County for organized crime, and uh he wasn't going back. And I looked up to him a lot, man. He taught me a lot about life and principles and, you know, how to be a man and not to do your own supply and stuff like that. And he didn't want to be a drug dealer. Uh he he that wasn't what he was trying to be. He wanted to be a father for his kid.

[00:17:37]Uh but he had to make money, you know, and and like he got drawn drawn back into it. Not an excuse, it's just sometimes that's how it works sometimes.

[00:17:47]Uh he had a total truck company business. Uh that is a cell phone company called Network Inc. at by the same pan. Uh so, when you start involve businesses and stuff like that, uh and drug trafficking and stuff like that, this is how you can be involved with organized crime by washing money and making things look good or appear to look good. Uh so, I was involved in a lot of that stuff as a young kid. Got to see a lot of that.

[00:18:11]But anyways, he told me he wasn't going back to prison, and I understood what he meant by that uh cuz the code was uh like you choose your own time.

[00:18:18]And so, he told me that uh it's it's easy to put a gun on somebody and pull the trigger, but when you really think about it, when it's time to pull it on yourself, that's when you become a man.

[00:18:30]And I was like, "What?" He's like, "Yeah, because at the end of the day, like it's easy to pull the trigger on somebody else to potentially end their life. But when you have to make that conscious decision to do do it to yourself, that's uh when you look at life a little bit different."

[00:18:42]And that hit me.

[00:18:43]And then he asked me, he's like, "Would you be able to pull the trigger?"

[00:18:47]I'm like, "Absolutely not. Brothers don't kill brothers, you know?"

[00:18:50]And he's like, "I figured as much." And so, I wanted to go out the same way. I wanted to shoot at the police. I'm like, "Fuck it." He's like, "Dude, you're young. You're not going to do much time.

[00:18:59]You're probably going to do a few years at best. Me, I'm never getting out. I'm looking at 30-plus years alone for organized crime and some other stuff. So, like I'll never see daylight again. So, like I don't want to be in that position. I'd rather choose my own time."

[00:19:12]And I'm like, "All right, cool."

[00:19:13]And so, uh after that, he he kind of went down the hallway and then uh wait hesitated probably like I don't know, 5 minutes, and then you hear the gunshot.

[00:19:29]And I already knew what he did.

[00:19:30]And so, I was like, "Fuck, dude." The phone rang. "Hey, what's going on? Blah blah." I said, "Nothing. I'll be out in a minute. Just give me some time." He said, "What was that shot?" I said, "My brother shot a round in the floor."

[00:19:40]And they're like, "Is everything good?"

[00:19:42]I'm like, "Yeah, everything's cool."

[00:19:43]So, after that, I opened up the door. They're all out front. And I was like the the reality of in. I'm like, [ __ ] dude like will I ever see daylight again? You know like is this a mistake?

[00:19:56]You know?

[00:19:57]Like and I know my brother like I know he's he chose his time, you know so like it is what it is. So then they tell me walk down the stairs backwards with my hands up blah blah blah. You'll see a newspaper article hopefully we can get that you'll see me walking back with my hands and you'll see a bunch of SWAT people in front of me.

[00:20:14]They finally gave me in my in cuffs.

[00:20:17]They searched my shoe, they found a bullet and our thing was back in the day the silver bullet was the bullet for yourself so we always put that the last in the bottom of the clip. He gave me that and I thought I could really keep that cuz uh I was a kid so I thought I'd hide it in my shoe in my tongue. Nah, they they stole that real quick.

[00:20:34]And then they hey man why is he why why isn't your brother answering? I said just give him some time bro he's looking at a lot of time like give him give him some time. But to me that was just a soft tactic I want to make sure that you know who want to come back alive as a vegetable look doing life in prison, you know so I just want to give him his peace.

[00:20:51]>> [music] >> Around 3:00 p.m. a gun was thrown out of the window and the sheriffs were able to negotiate JD into coming out of the trailer.

[00:21:00]They put me in a squad car pulled me around back.

[00:21:03]They all surrounded and asked some questions and I was just talked down played down played down played.

[00:21:08]Shortly after that they said they appreciate entry.

[00:21:11]Six hours after they had first arrived [music] at 4:00 p.m. the SWAT team was finally able to get into the mobile home and found 24-year-old Dennis Dyer dead [music] of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. And he was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head. And they asked me about it and I said well it is what it is, you know and they said he's dead like all right cool. So I know that's what he got that's what he wanted so I respected that. I don't look at him as a coward. He's done a lot of a lot of [ __ ] in life. Uh >> [music] >> I respect him as a man and and I I don't really I frown on suicide to a degree to where like if you take your life over a female or take your life over stupid [ __ ] like depression like you are a coward. But when you're looking at life in prison and I have friends to this day that have been shot by law enforcement uh cuz they refuse to go back to prison.

[00:22:01]I I respect that I understand that. You know you choose your own time. Who wants to spend the rest of their life in prison so that's a reality that people don't understand not nor do I make you nor do I want you to understand that.

[00:22:12]It's just a a perspective and a belief system that we're ingrained with. Uh does it make it right? I don't know the answer to that. Uh that that's for you to decide not me.

[00:22:23]Uh that's just the way it was for us growing up and till this day I still have friends that Yeah. Police assisted Police assisted suicide or or they just take their own life in one form or another cuz they don't want to spend the rest of their life in prison.

[00:22:38]So after that I ended up getting sentenced to juvenile life which means to the age of 21.

[00:22:44]Uh I went to Maple Lane for a few months.

[00:22:47]Uh one of my friends would be in jumped.

[00:22:49]Uh I helped him where we assaulted an individual.

[00:22:55]Uh and then I ended up being sent to Chelan or Baker. I think it was Chelan.

[00:23:02]And then I was there for a few months and they said I was too violent you're going to Green Hill. Subscribe to our channel to not miss [music] the next video.