00:00:06
in the United States of America some of
00:00:09
the world's most dangerous and notorious
00:00:12
prisoners are locked behind
00:00:14
bars he was incredibly strong to the
00:00:18
point where prison guards started
00:00:20
calling him the Hulk Tyler Davis Bingham
00:00:23
is one of them TD was probably the most
00:00:26
dangerous man I've ever known he was
00:00:28
feared by inmates
00:00:30
he was an imposing figure Bingham
00:00:32
started out as a petty criminal spending
00:00:35
time in Youth Correctional
00:00:37
Facilities almost like an Alcatraz
00:00:39
system for kids what you learn is you
00:00:41
got to fight and you got to be violent
00:00:43
in order to survive he was a Fearless
00:00:46
fighter and his physical prowess made
00:00:49
him a natural gang
00:00:51
leader he stabs a guy multiple times I
00:00:55
think over a dozen
00:00:57
times TD never allowed anyone to live
00:01:01
when he engaged in an individual it was
00:01:03
to the death even when moved to a
00:01:05
Maximum Security Prison bingum remain a
00:01:08
deadly
00:01:09
threat what makes him so dangerous was
00:01:12
the fact that he could literally just
00:01:14
write a couple letters down on a piece
00:01:16
of paper and have somebody killed
00:01:18
thousands of miles away that level of
00:01:20
power just doesn't exist in
00:01:28
society
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[Music]
00:01:46
[Music]
00:01:52
San Quinton Rehabilitation Center is the
00:01:54
oldest prison in
00:01:58
California
00:02:01
it has a reputation as being a really
00:02:03
violent place where you know you kind of
00:02:07
have to fight for your life it was a
00:02:09
dangerous place for anybody that had to
00:02:11
serve time there or work
00:02:15
there you have not only the smell of
00:02:19
flatulence and urine but also
00:02:22
testosterone and
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sweat in some instances depending
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blood and
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um
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[Music]
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decay all of the major gangs and gang
00:02:37
leaders and all the problem inmates went
00:02:41
to San
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Quenton it was maybe the most violent
00:02:45
prison in
00:02:46
California there was some blind spots in
00:02:49
the prison where Tower officers with
00:02:52
guns could not see and that's where some
00:02:55
of the stabbings and some of the
00:02:56
meetings would
00:02:58
occur this maximum security Correctional
00:03:01
Facility has the largest death row in
00:03:03
the US and houses nearly 4,000
00:03:08
inmates Tyler Davis Bingham AKA The Hulk
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was one of
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[Music]
00:03:20
them TD is a man's
00:03:23
man and probably the most violent
00:03:26
individual I've ever met in my life he
00:03:28
started excelling in this prison gang
00:03:31
structure and within just a few short
00:03:33
years basically became a leader of the
00:03:36
ab the Aran Brotherhood they were white
00:03:38
supremacist group they wanted to protect
00:03:41
the white inmates from the other gangs
00:03:43
whether they were Black Or Hispanic or
00:03:46
whatever Bingham committed his first
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crime as a child and throughout his
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teens was in and out of juvenile
00:03:53
detention
00:03:55
centers it was literally a situation
00:03:58
where kids would would just kind of
00:04:00
fight it out and um you know guards
00:04:04
either were repressive and violent
00:04:06
towards them or just kind of let the
00:04:08
violence happen between the kids
00:04:10
bingham's criminal career escalated and
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he ended up in an adult prison where he
00:04:15
ruled with his fists this guy's won
00:04:18
every single fight he's ever fought in
00:04:20
his
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life Bingham he he took his
00:04:26
weightlifting seriously he was a big sly
00:04:31
guy they called him the
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[Music]
00:04:38
Hulk if I were to
00:04:42
create the image of a
00:04:46
prototypical Aryan Brotherhood gang
00:04:50
member it would be T
00:04:53
[Music]
00:04:57
Bingham born in Sacramento California
00:05:00
Tyler Davis Bingham grew up with his
00:05:02
parents an older brother he started
00:05:05
getting into trouble with the law from
00:05:07
an early
00:05:08
age his first arrest was when he was 9
00:05:11
years old for petty theft and by 14 he
00:05:14
was in the California Youth Authority
00:05:17
which is basically like a prison
00:05:19
hellhole for
00:05:21
kids what got TD Bingham sent to the
00:05:25
California Youth Authority as a teenager
00:05:28
was kind of a Romeo and Juliet
00:05:32
story when he was 14 he fell in love
00:05:34
with a girl who was you know from his
00:05:36
area in
00:05:37
California and her mother didn't approve
00:05:40
she didn't like TD Bingham and her
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daughter was like head over heels in
00:05:44
love with him so they decide hey we're
00:05:46
going to run away to Texas in a
00:05:48
l what they did was they stole a car and
00:05:51
they drove all night long into the next
00:05:54
morning and they you know fell asleep in
00:05:56
each other's arms in the backseat of the
00:05:57
car that night
00:06:03
and when they woke up there was a
00:06:04
sheriff's deputy right there you know
00:06:07
knocking on their window trying to
00:06:08
figure out what the hell they were doing
00:06:11
there and they tried to play it off and
00:06:13
say oh hey we're from this area you know
00:06:16
we're just sleeping overnight but the
00:06:18
cop didn't believe him and you know he
00:06:20
comes to find out hey this is a stolen
00:06:21
car out of California and takes TD
00:06:24
Bingham into custody and he ultimately
00:06:27
ends up going to the California Youth
00:06:29
Authority
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[Music]
00:06:32
the California Youth Authority known as
00:06:35
cya was designed as a state level
00:06:37
Detention Facility for people under the
00:06:40
age of
00:06:42
18 it was the largest youth prison
00:06:44
system in the country at one time they
00:06:46
had 10,000 what we called Wards not
00:06:49
inmates they called them CU they were
00:06:51
Wards of the Court juveniles who enter a
00:06:54
correctional facility at a very young
00:06:56
age are already placed at risk it's kind
00:06:58
of the chicken the egg was the risk
00:07:00
prior to them being arrested or is the
00:07:03
juvenile correctional facility going to
00:07:04
be the risk factor or is it both if the
00:07:07
juvenile correctional facility is
00:07:09
equipped to handle the youth
00:07:12
rehabilitate the youth and put the youth
00:07:14
on a right track it may be the best
00:07:16
thing ever this however was not the case
00:07:19
for Tyler Davis Bingham at
00:07:21
cya the reports out of the California
00:07:24
Youth Authority are just horrifying this
00:07:26
was not just a punitive environment but
00:07:28
it was B basically a prison hellhole I
00:07:31
mean the the CIA system was worse than a
00:07:34
lot of adult prisons in
00:07:37
California I got hired by the courts to
00:07:40
go in and do an assessment on gang
00:07:42
violence so I walked and talked in 11
00:07:45
institutions came back wrote a report
00:07:48
said the place is a
00:07:51
mess kids were being held in like Dark
00:07:54
Cells as a form of punishment you know
00:07:56
no windows and lights get turned
00:07:58
out
00:08:00
kids were getting tortured in there kids
00:08:02
were living in completely unsanitary
00:08:04
environments guards would throw gas
00:08:06
canisters into their cells as a
00:08:08
punishment and just let them sit there
00:08:09
in it for a while you know urine and
00:08:11
feces all over the place chronic under
00:08:14
Staffing sometime you'd have one guard
00:08:16
looking after 60 or 70 kids and you know
00:08:20
these kids just ran a muck and and
00:08:22
assaulted each other stabbed each other
00:08:25
the other risk factor with juvenile's
00:08:26
going to Correctional Facilities is peer
00:08:28
influence so if a juvenile goes to a
00:08:30
correctional facilities and they are
00:08:32
surrounded by other juveniles who tend
00:08:34
to be maladaptive who tend to engage in
00:08:37
criminal activity lying cheating
00:08:39
stealing and violence that might
00:08:41
actually make the juvenile worse so to
00:08:43
speak because now the juvenile is
00:08:45
wanting to impress his peers or her
00:08:47
peers the juvenile wants to up the anti
00:08:50
the juvenile starts to realize that in
00:08:52
this circle of friends this is the way
00:08:54
you are supposed to behave and so that
00:08:56
can certainly be a risk factor for the
00:08:58
juvenile to enter Correctional
00:09:00
Facilities later on in
00:09:03
life the California Youth Authority was
00:09:06
a training ground and a breeding ground
00:09:09
for the state prison system this is
00:09:12
where young gang members hone their
00:09:15
skills you know it was almost like an
00:09:17
Alcatraz system for
00:09:20
kids you know it's hard to understand
00:09:23
the psychological impact that that has
00:09:25
and also you know ultimately what you
00:09:27
learn is you got to fight and you got to
00:09:29
be violent in order to survive TD
00:09:32
Bingham was released from the C at
00:09:34
around the age of 19 his time there
00:09:37
would have made a huge impact on his
00:09:39
life I think like it did for a lot of
00:09:43
people the C turned TD Bingham into
00:09:46
basically a troubled kid into a
00:09:47
full-fledged
00:09:49
gangster they start to view entering
00:09:51
Correctional Facilities as something
00:09:53
normal as part of their track to
00:09:55
becoming an adult and that's when it
00:09:56
becomes dangerous because that means
00:09:58
that in carceration is completely
00:10:00
normalized in the juvenile's brain and
00:10:03
so they start to think that going back
00:10:06
to prison and recidivating and
00:10:08
reoffending is just a normal part of
00:10:10
life for the next few years was in and
00:10:12
out of prison you have multiple Escape
00:10:15
attempts now an adult TD Bingham had
00:10:18
chosen his criminal career path and he
00:10:21
had upped the
00:10:22
ante and then in his early 20s he robbed
00:10:25
a liquor store what he did there was he
00:10:28
basically you know know held the clerk
00:10:30
at gunpoint walked the clerk into a
00:10:34
bathroom whacked him on the head with a
00:10:36
pistol and then when he was arrested for
00:10:39
that his excuse was well hey I needed
00:10:41
money so I took it TD Bingham pleaded
00:10:43
guilty to robbery of the first degree
00:10:45
and assault with a deadly weapon he was
00:10:48
initially sent to San Quinton prison but
00:10:50
in 1973 moved to old fome old fome state
00:10:55
prison is one of the oldest prisons in
00:10:57
California it's kind of easily
00:10:59
recognizable because it has this iconic
00:11:01
guard
00:11:03
Tower okay old fome you know was built
00:11:05
in the 1850s it looks like something out
00:11:08
of the
00:11:10
movies five tiers in each soul block
00:11:14
Gunners on the rail Gunners and gun
00:11:17
Towers worst of the worst for
00:11:22
years back in the' 7s 80s and even in
00:11:26
the '90s there were kind of constant
00:11:28
stabbing I mean certain prisons were War
00:11:32
zones Infamous fome inmates included
00:11:35
Sunny Barger a founding member of the
00:11:37
Hell's Angels and Charles Jackson AKA
00:11:41
the East Bay Slayer convicted of killing
00:11:43
at least seven women and a
00:11:49
man it was here in fulam that TD Bingham
00:11:53
had his first contact with prison gangs
00:11:56
T Bingham is a guy who who spent most of
00:12:00
his life in prison including during his
00:12:03
childhood who's basically a product of
00:12:06
the system originally prison gangs were
00:12:09
essentially like a Loosely formed group
00:12:11
of guys that would sort of band together
00:12:13
for
00:12:15
protection typically most prison gangs
00:12:18
go by ethnicity you have Mexican gangs
00:12:21
you have black gangs you have white
00:12:22
supremacist
00:12:25
gangs being part of a gang in prison is
00:12:29
pretty common and a lot of these inmates
00:12:33
may not have been gang members on the
00:12:35
outside but when you come into prison
00:12:38
it's for your own protection and
00:12:41
survival if a race riot starts or an
00:12:45
intergang brawl starts you're going to
00:12:48
have to choose a side and let's say
00:12:51
you're a white inmate and the whites and
00:12:54
the blacks are fighting on the yard or
00:12:55
the whites and the Mexicans are fighting
00:12:57
on the yard if you don't get involved
00:12:59
and support the whites when it's over
00:13:03
they're going to hit you and there was
00:13:05
an obvious choice of prison gang for TD
00:13:09
Bingham the Aryan Brotherhood is a
00:13:12
California originated prison gang that
00:13:15
started in the 60s and they basically
00:13:18
formed as a defensive they were kind of
00:13:21
outnumbered by the Hispanics and blacks
00:13:24
so they wanted to form a group of white
00:13:27
inmates to defend themselves
00:13:29
the Aryan Brotherhood was pretty well
00:13:31
established by the time TD Bingham found
00:13:33
himself in prison he immediately joins
00:13:35
up with the Aryan Brotherhood and
00:13:36
becomes kind of this you know uh like
00:13:40
almost heroic figure within the gang
00:13:42
right
00:13:44
away TD Ming's reputation during those
00:13:47
years was somebody who had the strength
00:13:49
of like four or five dudes who if you
00:13:52
were next to him and you were guys were
00:13:54
fighting people together you weren't
00:13:55
going to
00:13:58
lose
00:14:00
he presented a pretty imposing
00:14:02
figure within fulam the prison gang was
00:14:05
evolving into a much bigger
00:14:08
organization they kind of got into from
00:14:11
the whole white supremacist ideology and
00:14:14
more into drug dealing and being in
00:14:18
business uh they have a very strong
00:14:20
reputation of being assaultive and in
00:14:23
killing people and things like that and
00:14:25
being a very violent gang with his
00:14:28
intimidating presence and Authority TD
00:14:30
Bingham fitted right in with the gang he
00:14:33
started excelling in this prison gang
00:14:36
structure and within just a few short
00:14:38
years basically became a leader of the
00:14:41
ab and become one of the most powerful
00:14:43
gangsters in American
00:14:53
history in the mid-70s TD Bingham was
00:14:56
locked up at Old fome prison in
00:14:58
California
00:15:00
he had joined a white supremacist gang
00:15:03
the Aryan Brotherhood and quickly Rose
00:15:05
to the ranks to become one of its
00:15:08
leaders when I got to Old fulam I was
00:15:10
the youngest man to be at Old
00:15:13
fulam pretty much everybody else had
00:15:15
gray
00:15:16
hair and they put me in the hole there
00:15:20
my name is Michael Thompson and I'm a
00:15:22
former member of the Aran
00:15:27
Brotherhood
00:15:30
I was introduced to the big
00:15:32
boys you had all the major gangs you had
00:15:36
the Aran Brotherhood the Mexican Mafia
00:15:38
the Texas Syndicate the black gorilla
00:15:41
family the Black Panthers you had
00:15:43
Charlie
00:15:45
Manson these were veteran
00:15:48
convicts and uh for the most part
00:15:51
skilled
00:15:53
Warriors often times the cost of joining
00:15:56
a gang might even involve egregious type
00:15:59
of activities such as having to
00:16:00
prostitute yourselves having to smuggle
00:16:02
drugs having to carry out assaults that
00:16:05
you don't want to carry out even murders
00:16:07
and so in order to have this protection
00:16:11
which is basically a false sense of
00:16:12
protection in a lot of ways you have to
00:16:15
sometimes compromise your own values and
00:16:17
possibly your own freedom in order to
00:16:19
engage in criminal activity that may not
00:16:21
benefit you directly but will benefit
00:16:24
the gang one prison gang the Black
00:16:26
Panthers soon approached Young new
00:16:29
prisoner
00:16:30
Michael Yogi approached me on the
00:16:33
yard as the head of the Black
00:16:36
Panthers uh with the idea of recruiting
00:16:38
me he gave me a
00:16:41
Spiel that included The Communist
00:16:44
Manifesto and the pig establishment and
00:16:48
all things that I really did not have
00:16:52
the intellectual capacity to
00:16:56
comprehend I couldn't read or write
00:16:59
and um I had no understanding of
00:17:03
politics in this country but the one
00:17:05
thing I did know was that I was
00:17:08
American and so that I
00:17:12
declined and my decline basically for
00:17:14
that reason I told him um I'm not really
00:17:18
smart enough to understand everything
00:17:20
that you're telling me what I do know is
00:17:21
that I'm
00:17:23
American and um if I understand you
00:17:26
correctly you're a communist
00:17:30
and so the answer is no and he said
00:17:34
well he said you're either with us or
00:17:36
against
00:17:38
us and I said well I reckon I'm against
00:17:40
you then declining an invitation to join
00:17:44
a gang was insulting it meant that
00:17:46
Thompson had to fight just to stay alive
00:17:49
and as I walked through the gate of the
00:17:53
yard four blacks rushed me with knives
00:17:56
took me to the ground and they started
00:17:58
stabbing me and they were stabbing me
00:18:00
high they weren't hitting anything vital
00:18:03
really and in a couple of instances I
00:18:06
felt the knives go all the way through
00:18:07
me and [ __ ] the asphalt underneath
00:18:10
me but it seemed almost as quickly as
00:18:12
they had jumped on me they jumped off
00:18:15
and the second they jumped off shots
00:18:17
were
00:18:18
fired and I could feel
00:18:21
the
00:18:22
asphalt penetrating my body from the
00:18:25
shots as well as some of the
00:18:27
shrapnel
00:18:29
but I was determined to walk off the
00:18:34
yard so when the guards came out with
00:18:36
their
00:18:37
gy and were going to roll me over onto
00:18:40
it I refused to let him do that and I
00:18:43
told him I'm going to walk off this yard
00:18:46
took me a minute to get up and I
00:18:49
eventually got up and I shuffled off the
00:18:51
yard the same way I shuffled
00:18:53
on and the injuries were such that once
00:18:56
we got past the doors I said okay put me
00:18:59
on the gurnie but it was a matter of
00:19:01
Pride and that I walk off that
00:19:04
yard and it had an enormous impact on
00:19:08
those individuals who had attempted to
00:19:10
kill me one they had failed and two I'd
00:19:13
gotten up under my own Steam and walked
00:19:15
off the
00:19:16
yard and that did not bode well for them
00:19:20
another gang member was impressed by his
00:19:22
courage and Michael was asked to join a
00:19:25
different
00:19:26
gang you know the next person to a
00:19:28
approached me was TD Bingham he came up
00:19:31
and uh extended his hand and we shook
00:19:34
hands and he told me that uh he liked
00:19:37
the way I handled myself he asked me
00:19:39
well what do you
00:19:41
think would you like to join up with
00:19:45
us and I told him TD I said for right
00:19:48
now I'm just going to do my own thing he
00:19:51
spit and then he laughed he says but we
00:19:53
got your
00:19:54
back and I said that isn't necessary I I
00:19:58
can fight my own
00:20:00
fights and um he laughed again and I
00:20:03
like the hell out of TD TD is a man's
00:20:07
man and um probably the most violent
00:20:10
individual I've ever met in my
00:20:14
life I didn't know a thing about the
00:20:16
Aran Brotherhood back then you know my
00:20:18
initial impression was like so many
00:20:21
people that uh they were Nazis or they
00:20:23
were racists and I certainly knew that
00:20:26
they were dope FS cuz they all had the
00:20:28
phys iCal characteristics of that track
00:20:30
marks on their
00:20:31
arms and in truth I wasn't
00:20:34
impressed if you're targeted by the Aran
00:20:38
Brotherhood you you know if they can get
00:20:40
to you they're going to kill you they're
00:20:42
a very dangerous gang and not a gang to
00:20:45
be taken lightly eventually Michael
00:20:47
Thompson gave in and accepted TD's
00:20:51
offer they actually lived pretty good in
00:20:53
prison they had everything they wanted
00:20:56
they had drugs they had commodities they
00:20:58
had clothes back then and um that
00:21:01
resonated with me so what he was really
00:21:04
telling me was that they controlled
00:21:06
their
00:21:07
environment and that appealed to
00:21:10
me it was 1977 and by now the Aryan
00:21:14
Brotherhood was a powerful structure in
00:21:16
the California prison system the Aran
00:21:19
Brotherhood gets involved in anything
00:21:22
that they think will be profitable for
00:21:27
them in prison violence is the number
00:21:29
one
00:21:31
currency and gangs use it
00:21:34
extensively it is via the mechanism of
00:21:39
violence that the gangs
00:21:42
control so violence is the number one
00:21:47
currency it was not easy to join the
00:21:50
Aryan Brotherhood in fulam TD Bingham
00:21:53
held the
00:21:55
keys getting to be a member you had to
00:21:58
be be sponsored by a member and
00:22:03
recommended by that
00:22:05
[Music]
00:22:06
member you had to do work for them and
00:22:09
usually that work meant assaulting
00:22:11
somebody at their
00:22:14
[Music]
00:22:16
behest The Gangs only want people that
00:22:20
they think will help
00:22:23
them uh produce that fear and
00:22:27
intimidation
00:22:30
at that time TD was probably the most
00:22:32
influential member of the Aryan
00:22:34
Brotherhood and the reason he was
00:22:37
because he had established himself his
00:22:39
physical prowess was
00:22:43
unparalleled extremely wellb built
00:22:45
extremely strong and extremely skilled
00:22:49
in
00:22:51
combat there's this sort of cliche line
00:22:54
of Blood In Blood Out which basically
00:22:56
means that you have to kill somebody or
00:22:58
come pretty damn close to join the ab
00:23:01
and in order to get out you have to
00:23:04
die each time you go out to the yard you
00:23:07
knew you were going to fight so say for
00:23:10
instance the black Rea family would go
00:23:12
down to one end of the yard and the Aran
00:23:14
Brotherhood and Mexico Mafia would go to
00:23:16
the other end of the yard and at a
00:23:19
pre-agreed upon
00:23:22
signal they would merge to the center of
00:23:24
the yard and begin
00:23:27
combat and that happened every time we
00:23:30
went to the
00:23:33
yard by 1978 Michael Thompson had proved
00:23:37
himself to the Aryan Brotherhood and
00:23:39
joined TD Bingham on the
00:23:43
battlefield it was a blood bath so much
00:23:46
so that they had to bring the fir truck
00:23:48
out in the yard to wash the blood
00:23:52
away TD ended up killing a man that
00:23:56
day TD
00:23:59
never allowed anyone to
00:24:01
live when he engaged an individual it
00:24:04
was to the
00:24:05
death and his intent engaging that
00:24:08
individual was to kill him he did so
00:24:12
efficiently effectively and
00:24:18
swiftly Tyler Davis Bingham was one of
00:24:21
the leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood a
00:24:23
white supremacist gang that controlled
00:24:26
many of the West Coast prisons Michael
00:24:29
Thompson was bingham's right-hand man TD
00:24:31
bingham's role with the Aran Brotherhood
00:24:34
at that time it was one man one vote and
00:24:36
you did have those individuals who were
00:24:38
more influential than others and TD was
00:24:41
one of those
00:24:42
individuals together Bingham and
00:24:44
Thompson regularly got involved in
00:24:46
bloody and fatal battles with gang
00:24:48
rivals in the prison
00:24:50
yard that upset the
00:24:53
administration considerably because so
00:24:56
many people have been injured and killed
00:25:01
California prisons back then were
00:25:03
extremely
00:25:04
dangerous I don't think that there was a
00:25:07
prison in the United States a prison
00:25:09
system in the United States that was
00:25:12
more
00:25:14
dangerous people would get stabbed and
00:25:16
killed and The Yards would get briefly
00:25:19
shut down they'd bring the victim out in
00:25:21
a gurnie and then they just reactivate
00:25:23
things just like you know business as
00:25:26
usual TD and I were kicked out of fome
00:25:29
was because of the
00:25:31
violence in 1979 TD Bingham and Michael
00:25:35
Thompson were transferred to San Quenton
00:25:38
State Prison in
00:25:40
California San Quenton was sort of
00:25:42
Ground Zero for a lot of violence
00:25:44
between prison gangs all of the major
00:25:47
gangs and gang leaders and all of the
00:25:50
problem inmates went to San
00:25:53
qu it was a dangerous place for for
00:25:56
anybody that had to serve time there or
00:25:58
work there San Quinton back in the 70s
00:26:01
was falling
00:26:03
apart San Quinton cells were
00:26:07
smaller I could take one elbow and put
00:26:09
it on the wall and outstretch my other
00:26:12
arm and I could touch wall the
00:26:16
wall there was some blind spots in the
00:26:19
prison where Tower officers with guns
00:26:22
could not see and that's where some of
00:26:24
the stabbings and some of the meetings
00:26:26
would
00:26:27
occur
00:26:29
but gang violence continued for the
00:26:31
Aryan Brotherhood and business was
00:26:34
booming they controlled all fome in San
00:26:37
Quenton so you had transient populations
00:26:40
there from 3,000 to 5,000 depending on
00:26:42
the time a lot of overcrowding it's like
00:26:45
a small
00:26:49
City they want to control whatever they
00:26:52
can in the in the
00:26:54
institution um and and they do that by
00:26:58
by fear and
00:27:01
intimidation well urine brotherhood's
00:27:04
primary racket if you will was violence
00:27:07
violence For Hire it hired out to um
00:27:10
other
00:27:11
organizations but it was also again used
00:27:13
again his currency towards controlling
00:27:15
the resources in
00:27:19
prison if you borrow from them and you
00:27:23
don't pay it back they'll kill you if
00:27:25
you buy drugs from them and don't pay
00:27:28
them
00:27:28
they'll kill
00:27:31
you any legitimate or illegitimate
00:27:34
business that they can sink their teeth
00:27:35
into they're going to do because first
00:27:37
and foremost the Aryan Brotherhood is a
00:27:39
money-making organization essentially my
00:27:43
observation of the Aran Brotherhood is
00:27:45
their rivals or anybody that interferes
00:27:48
with the rackets that they're
00:27:54
controlling they're controlling the
00:27:56
drugs they're controlling the pro
00:27:58
stitution they're controlling the lone
00:27:59
sharking they're controlling
00:28:02
everything the product that they're
00:28:04
moving into the prison paying off the
00:28:06
guards to do
00:28:09
that whilst TD Bingham ramped up the
00:28:11
Aryan Brotherhood operations it caused
00:28:14
tension between rival prison
00:28:17
gangs TD and I weren't at San Quenton
00:28:19
more than a week and we got into it with
00:28:21
the Mexican mafia they had stabbed an
00:28:24
associate of the ab right after TD and I
00:28:27
got there
00:28:30
next time we went out to the yard TD and
00:28:32
I we didn't have any knives but we beat
00:28:33
the hell out of them but this time an
00:28:36
armed guard in the prison gun Tower
00:28:39
intervened the Gunner that Tower was
00:28:41
only 12 ft off the ground so if he
00:28:44
leaned over the rail he was probably 8
00:28:46
ft away from us he was shooting TD and I
00:28:49
in the
00:28:51
back while he was loading he was that
00:28:53
damn good TD and I both took five rounds
00:28:56
in the back and the only reason we
00:28:59
stopped what we were doing is that the
00:29:01
the damn lead from the shotgun got so
00:29:03
hot that it was
00:29:05
unbearable doctor said the only reason
00:29:07
that it didn't kill us is that didn't
00:29:09
puncture along with the heart was
00:29:11
because TD and I both had so much muscle
00:29:13
on our
00:29:16
backs events like
00:29:19
that usually lead to
00:29:21
Warfare but the Mexican Mafia and the ab
00:29:24
were
00:29:25
allies so you don't really want to go to
00:29:28
Warfare because what that Warfare does
00:29:30
is it intrudes upon business it's not
00:29:32
because you like each other it's because
00:29:35
you're in business together and you're
00:29:37
making a lot of money and you don't want
00:29:38
to stop
00:29:40
that money is green and really there's
00:29:43
no color when it comes to money so you
00:29:46
often find that these racially motivated
00:29:48
gangs are willing to put all of that
00:29:50
aside in order to get their needs met
00:29:52
and usually those needs are Financial
00:29:54
the Aryan Brotherhood continued to grow
00:29:57
and despite all all the gangs activities
00:29:59
and crimes TD Bingham managed to get
00:30:02
paroled in
00:30:06
1981 Tyler Bingham was briefly paroled
00:30:09
and it seems like he attempted to go
00:30:11
straight and start a new life with a
00:30:14
family he fell in love and married this
00:30:17
woman and basically they moved their
00:30:19
family out to Texas and he became an oil
00:30:22
rig guy while he was paroled he was
00:30:25
still a full-fledged Aran brother Ood
00:30:28
member it was harder to communicate with
00:30:30
prisoners during those days and you also
00:30:33
have to remember just how much clout
00:30:34
that he had within the ab I think this
00:30:36
is a guy who could pretty much do
00:30:37
whatever the hell he wanted TD Bingham
00:30:40
formerly adopted two of his partner's
00:30:43
children they also had a third one
00:30:46
together but family life only lasted for
00:30:49
4
00:30:50
years that time period ended because he
00:30:53
went into a bank with a revolver and
00:30:55
robbed a bank at gunpoint and stuck the
00:30:57
revolver underneath the door and pointed
00:30:59
it right at the clerk and then he made
00:31:01
off with $112,000 and was arrested a day
00:31:04
or two later and sentence to 25 years in
00:31:07
federal
00:31:10
prison that's not surprising considering
00:31:13
that you know he started engaging in
00:31:16
criminal activity at the age of nine and
00:31:19
so he has a lifelong history of this
00:31:22
pattern it's really the only thing he
00:31:24
knows how to do convicted for bank
00:31:27
robbery a federal crime 38-year-old TD
00:31:30
Bingham was sent to Lok federal prison
00:31:33
in California the Aryan Brotherhood was
00:31:36
already present there and welcomed TD
00:31:38
Bingham with open arms when certain
00:31:42
members of the Aran Brotherhood from
00:31:44
California got convicted of federal
00:31:46
crimes they took the gang to the federal
00:31:49
prisons as the Aran Brotherhood in
00:31:51
California started to
00:31:53
evolve they needed better
00:31:56
organization so they decided they were
00:31:58
going to have maybe three leaders be the
00:32:01
commission that would make decisions
00:32:03
serious decisions who gets into the ab
00:32:06
who gets hit TD Bingham was ready to
00:32:09
take back the
00:32:12
leadership he was basically made a
00:32:14
commissioner in the federal system
00:32:16
instantaneously pretty much the same
00:32:18
same time that he put his foot down in
00:32:20
the first prison yard TD's role on the
00:32:23
commission was essentially if TD says
00:32:26
that this needs to happen pretty much
00:32:29
the commission votes that way but he
00:32:32
wouldn't just send orders he made sure
00:32:34
to prove he was still a Hands-On gang
00:32:37
boss when T got to Lum par he learned
00:32:40
that there was an individual there that
00:32:41
was marked for hit and he didn't
00:32:45
hesitate the Fell's name was Gary
00:32:48
evilsizer so he goes up to Gary
00:32:50
evilsizer with a prison m shank and
00:32:52
stabs him he stabs a guy multiple times
00:32:55
I think over a dozen times attempting to
00:32:58
kill him but evilsizer somehow survives
00:33:01
he made no effort to get away with it TD
00:33:04
Bingham would be moved to a maximum
00:33:06
security facility but nothing would stop
00:33:09
this gang Leader's reign of
00:33:11
terror the Bureau of Prisons thought
00:33:13
that maybe they'd solved the problem by
00:33:14
doing this and that these guys weren't
00:33:16
going to to find a way to you know get
00:33:19
around those restrictions and kill more
00:33:21
people but of course they were
00:33:26
wrong
00:33:29
TD Bingham one of the leaders of the
00:33:31
Aryan Brotherhood was back in prison and
00:33:34
he immediately asserted his power within
00:33:38
1 month of going to federal prison he
00:33:39
stabs somebody gets arrested for
00:33:41
attempted murder gets another 12 years
00:33:44
tacked onto his prison sentence on top
00:33:45
of the 25 he's already doing because of
00:33:48
that stabbing he's shipped off to uh
00:33:51
more restrictive housing TD Bingham was
00:33:54
quickly sent far away from California to
00:33:57
the United States Penitentiary Marion in
00:34:00
Illinois USP Marion was the first sort
00:34:04
of supermax prison after Alcatraz kind
00:34:08
of collapsed and couldn't really be used
00:34:10
as a prison anymore and so for many
00:34:13
years it was kind of seen as the go-to
00:34:15
place to house the most dangerous or
00:34:18
otherwise violent you know offenders in
00:34:20
the uh federal prison system rather than
00:34:23
cut TD Bingham off from any contact with
00:34:26
the Aryan Brotherhood he is was locked
00:34:28
up with another Power leader of the
00:34:30
white supremacist gang Barry
00:34:33
Mills I think T and Mills were already
00:34:36
well acquainted and they're already
00:34:37
friends and they already obviously were
00:34:40
cohorts at that point so you know here's
00:34:43
two Aran Brotherhood Commissioners in
00:34:45
the same
00:34:47
place they were the most influential
00:34:50
members of the ab commission they were
00:34:52
both housed in Maran
00:34:54
Illinois and um responsible for the
00:34:58
death of a lot of
00:35:00
people at this point have the ability to
00:35:02
spread their wings out and not just grow
00:35:05
the gang but organize it in in ways that
00:35:08
you know haven't really happened
00:35:11
before now they're all across America
00:35:15
and they're recruiting people who have
00:35:16
never been to California into the Aran
00:35:19
Brotherhood and all of a sudden it turns
00:35:21
into you know a California prison gang
00:35:24
to something with a nationwide reach the
00:35:28
gangs are very sophisticated you know
00:35:31
you can't take them lightly every time
00:35:34
that law enforcement adjusts to how
00:35:37
prison gangs operated they would adjust
00:35:40
and change their method of
00:35:43
operation from the perspective of the
00:35:46
Department of Justice the advantage of
00:35:48
getting these guys into federal prison
00:35:50
is kind of seen as a way to break the
00:35:51
gang up but there's this giant caveat to
00:35:54
that because really the only way to do
00:35:57
that is to cut off their ability to
00:35:58
communicate with the outside and that
00:36:01
legally is
00:36:03
restricted communication is the
00:36:05
lifeblood of the gangs today it's cell
00:36:08
phon smuggled cell phones prior to cell
00:36:11
phones they used people paroling they
00:36:13
would take out a message or they would
00:36:15
talk to visitors they had written
00:36:18
correspondence most of it coded well
00:36:21
communication amongst the Aryan
00:36:23
Brotherhood and prison was multifaceted
00:36:26
we used code s and
00:36:28
kites that we would send through
00:36:31
Messengers if it was going to the street
00:36:33
we had people come visit us and often
00:36:36
times we would send coded messages out
00:36:38
through the mail you had the most common
00:36:41
way was to take urine on yellow legal
00:36:45
paper and you would write the message
00:36:46
and Ur on the legal paper it would dry
00:36:48
and you couldn't see it but when the
00:36:50
party who received it got it they would
00:36:52
take an iron or just a torch and heat it
00:36:55
and the wording would come out
00:36:58
I think TD Bingham and Barry Mills had
00:37:01
sort of worldwide domination aspirations
00:37:04
they wanted to grow this gang into
00:37:07
something the likes of which had never
00:37:09
been seen before and that's what they
00:37:11
were attempting to
00:37:12
do in 1995 the government sent TD
00:37:16
Bingham Barry Mills and other high
00:37:18
ranking members to the federal supermax
00:37:21
prison USP Florence admax in Colorado
00:37:25
that's the most secure prison in United
00:37:27
States so there's terrorists in there
00:37:30
there's gang leaders from all over the
00:37:32
country well they got moved to adx
00:37:35
because the Federal Bureau of Prisons
00:37:37
wanted to restrict their ability to
00:37:39
communicate and Order AB members
00:37:42
throughout the federal bureau prison
00:37:43
system to do different you know acts of
00:37:46
violence so they moved them to adx to
00:37:48
restrict their ability to
00:37:50
communicate the Cali of individual there
00:37:52
you have are jihadist and I think um the
00:37:56
idea there was to to essentially cut off
00:37:58
the head of the snake via that isolation
00:38:01
it's pretty
00:38:03
isolated their mail is heavily censored
00:38:06
I don't believe they receive contact
00:38:07
visits so they receive video
00:38:14
visits from inside the supermax prison
00:38:17
TD Bingham still managed to send out
00:38:20
messages and engage in Conflict remotely
00:38:23
with another gang the DC
00:38:26
blacks there was plenty of violence
00:38:28
between DC blacks and the Aryan
00:38:30
Brotherhood there were murders back and
00:38:31
forth you kill one of ours we kill one
00:38:33
of yours type of thing and then um it
00:38:36
kind of the tension came to a head where
00:38:39
the Aryan brotherhood's commission you
00:38:41
know decided like hey are we going to
00:38:44
call an allout War here there was a
00:38:46
number of notes that that went out but
00:38:48
the note that came from TD Bingham
00:38:50
basically just said war with DC blacks
00:38:53
It Was Written in invisible ink and it
00:38:55
was attached to a letter that just had a
00:38:57
bunch of written on it that was totally
00:38:59
innocuous if you know how to read it and
00:39:01
you you reveal the invisible ink it's
00:39:04
really a Kill
00:39:06
Order TD Bingham declared a war against
00:39:09
the DC blacks gang at the federal prison
00:39:12
Lewisburg in
00:39:14
Pennsylvania it kicked off a number of
00:39:16
other stabbings I think two murders and
00:39:18
two other attempted murders that same
00:39:21
day in Lewisburg the letter was written
00:39:23
in adx Florence where TD Bingham and
00:39:26
Barry Mills were already housed and it
00:39:29
did underscore how dangerous he was
00:39:32
because he was able to write you know a
00:39:35
couple letters on a piece of paper and
00:39:37
kick off basically a Nationwide race war
00:39:40
within the prison
00:39:42
system there are a number of ways to
00:39:45
communicate you know you and I could
00:39:46
stand here and look at each other and I
00:39:49
could use Morse code with my eyelids and
00:39:52
here's the thing when you have nothing
00:39:55
else to do but sit in yourself
00:39:59
and conceive
00:40:02
ideas that will
00:40:04
circumvent that which they're attempting
00:40:06
to impose upon
00:40:09
you sooner or later you're going to find
00:40:12
a way to circumvent that Authority in
00:40:17
2002 the government finally indicted
00:40:20
several members of the Aran Brotherhood
00:40:22
including Bingham under the racketeer
00:40:25
influenced and corrupt organization act
00:40:28
known as
00:40:30
Rico Rico is a federal statute that was
00:40:34
originally used against organized crime
00:40:36
back in New York New Jersey and Chicago
00:40:40
uh they used it against the loosa Nostra
00:40:42
and it's based on a conspiracy it's a
00:40:45
very very effective way to prosecute a
00:40:49
gang the federal government indicted
00:40:51
about 40 AB
00:40:54
members they were seeking the death
00:40:56
penalty against 40 individuals that's
00:40:59
pretty damn
00:41:00
significant I had just
00:41:04
retired and they brought me back to
00:41:07
organize the security for that trial
00:41:10
because number one we had 40 defendants
00:41:13
we had to keep track of I think we had
00:41:15
70 defense Witnesses we had to keep
00:41:18
track of and we had over a 100
00:41:21
prosecution
00:41:22
witnesses one thing as the ab is known
00:41:24
for is they always want to escape so we
00:41:27
were always dealing with Escape plots
00:41:30
the death penalty was on the table okay
00:41:33
so the ab was saying hey if if any AB
00:41:37
member gets executed they'll take out
00:41:40
four or five
00:41:41
cops well during the course and these
00:41:44
Rico prosecutions take a couple of years
00:41:47
during a course of this several
00:41:48
prosecutors changed and they decided to
00:41:51
take the death penalty off the table the
00:41:55
RICO prosecution of the aring
00:41:56
Brotherhood was an absolute failure they
00:41:59
failed in that the best they could get
00:42:01
out of that was life sentences life
00:42:03
sentences for individuals that were
00:42:05
already serving life so that was the
00:42:07
expenditure of millions of dollars so
00:42:10
that they could have another life
00:42:11
sentence added onto their life
00:42:14
sense in November 2006 TD Bingham and
00:42:18
other AB gang members were convicted of
00:42:20
violent crimes in Aid of racketeering
00:42:23
and murder Bingham received a sentence
00:42:26
of life
00:42:27
without
00:42:32
parole Bingham remained at the supermax
00:42:35
prison USP Florence admax in Colorado I
00:42:40
think that because of how restrictive TD
00:42:42
bingham's prison conditions are he
00:42:44
doesn't wield any direct power over the
00:42:47
ab right now but he's kind of an icon or
00:42:51
he's seen as sort of this influential
00:42:53
figure who's almost like a martyr or
00:42:56
kind of you know something approaching a
00:42:58
saint within the
00:43:01
gang my feelings about the Aran
00:43:03
Brotherhood today is that um they
00:43:06
parallel most your hate groups I despise
00:43:10
it I despise the idea that young minds
00:43:13
are being
00:43:14
influenced by
00:43:16
individuals who by my best estimation
00:43:19
and opinion are sick in their own
00:43:23
minds what makes TD Bingham one of the
00:43:26
most dangerous prisoners in history is
00:43:28
not his ability as a fighter which was
00:43:32
pretty incredible but what makes him so
00:43:36
dangerous was the fact that he could
00:43:38
literally just write a couple letters
00:43:40
down on a piece of paper and have
00:43:42
somebody killed thousands of miles away
00:43:44
like that level of power just doesn't
00:43:47
exist in society giving him 15 minutes a
00:43:51
day outside of his cell could result in
00:43:53
in people getting killed giving him you
00:43:56
know phone calls with whoever he wants
00:43:57
could result in getting people
00:44:01
killed I've always understood something
00:44:04
about TD and that his he has no
00:44:08
compulsion against
00:44:10
killing regardless I think if TD Bingham
00:44:14
got out of his current you know cell
00:44:17
he'd still be a
00:44:18
threat for right now I think the feds
00:44:21
are pretty confident they've got him
00:44:22
locked down to the point where he can
00:44:24
interact with people and if that's not
00:44:26
true true they probably won't realize it
00:44:28
until it's too
00:44:30
[Music]
00:44:40
[Music]
00:44:56
late
00:45:00
[Music]
00:45:05
[Music]
