They say drug dealing is a violent game. Guns, money, and gang violence are all portrayed to the public as common occurrences when you decide to sell drugs. I’m not going to say that doesn’t happen when it comes to selling drugs, but what I can tell you is exactly what I told the federal prosecutor when she asked me to rat on my friends.

It was March of 2017, approximately a year after I had been arrested by the state. The state found seven pounds of marijuana in my house and about a quarter pound of concentrates referred to as “shatter.” I had been out on bail for almost a year and had done everything required. I was dating a beautiful, wonderful woman that I really did love, and she had taken me and all my trouble. I had my two-and-a-half year old daughter half the time, and this particular week was mine.

I had taken my daughter to a trampoline park to meet the characters from Beauty and the Beast that day. My lawyer had been in contact with the federal prosecutor, and I knew I was likely to be indicted. My lawyer was under the impression that if I was in fact indicted, I could then turn myself in willingly. After an amazing day with my daughter, we fell asleep together. Even though she had her own bed, I couldn’t sleep without her. We fell asleep happy, like any father and child would.

The next thing I knew, I could sense a flashlight on my face. I jumped out of bed and saw people were outside my window. They were yelling, “FBI! FBI!” So I ran to my door. I opened it to find guns raised and ready to shoot me if I made a single false move. I told them my daughter was asleep in bed, but they quickly busted into my house and started frantically searching. There was nothing to find that I hadn’t already sold in the previous year. They called my sister to come and get my daughter, then they sat me in the kitchen—in handcuffs—as my daughter looked on. It was the most I have cried since this all started happening.

They took me to court and gave me a bail. They made sure it was so late in the day that I couldn’t get out. The first three days were spent in a cell with two other men, locked in the there literally all day and all night. Once a day you were allowed five minutes to try and make a phone call. By the time you made it through the system, if the person didn’t answer, then you didn’t have a second chance. They don’t even let you shower.

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I got bailed out five days later. The girl I loved came and picked me up from jail.

When the prosecutor asked me to rat on my friends, I simply explained to her the truth about how things really went: the people I fuck with are people I truly love. They are the best people I know, and we have been friends for years. I have never seen a gun in my time selling weed. I have never felt threatened, I have never felt fear. I have never hurt anyone, even if they owed me money, and I have never even threatened to cause harm to someone. If someone took me off, I took it as a loss. In the end, they were just missing out on an opportunity to make even more. The only time I’d ever had a gun in my face was them. The only time my child was in danger was them. They knew I wasn’t actively selling, they knew I wasn’t violent, and they knew my daughter was asleep in my bed. Their tactic was to scare me to get me to talk. What they didn’t realize is that’s just not how it is.

Why would I rat on the people that I love just to help a bunch of strangers who had guns in my face for no reason at all?