Way back a few years ago I used to watch this series called “Lock Up” that used to be on prime-time TV. The show’s crew used to go to various state penitentiaries and interview staff and inmates about what goes on inside.

The most memorable moment in that show’s history is when they paid a visit to the Eddyville Kentucky State Penitentiary and interview an inmate named Fleece Johnson, aka “Booty Warrior.”

A predator that preys on other predators, the Booty Warrior coined the phrase “ …we can do it the easy way, or the hard way, the choice is yours…” he also says “ there ain’t no shame in my game…” and “I am what I am, but I’m a warrior too..”

The interview gave this notorious person some unintended fame. Especially when that animated series “The Boondocks” did a sketch based on that infamous interview.

Well, after serving over forty years in the penitentiary, Fleece Johnson was set free. True_George came across a recent interview that gave an insight of the sort of person Fleece Johnson is. His story was quite interesting.

Fleece was born in the West End projects in Louisville Kentucky, which he described as the worst most violent project in Louisville. His crime spree started when he was twelve years old, starting with stealing cars.

Fleece, not only stole cars, he used to mess with law enforcement by making the police chase them into an alley, going out to the other side of the alley, Fleece’s accomplishes used to hit the Police cars making them flip over.

His accomplishes got caught and they all pointed the finger to Fleece. But it took a while to actually take Fleece into custody.

The police set up a drag net and closed off the street, and when they cornered Fleece, they opened fire on him, even though he was unarmed. However, people living in the projects heard the commotion and came out protesting the injustice. That action saved Johnson, the cops that arrested him told Johnson that if it wasn’t for those people coming out in the streets, they (the cops) would have killed him.

Even while taking Fleece to the children’s lock up, it was marred with questionable actions by the police officer who had  custody of Fleece .  Being the type of person Fleece was, he did not take the Police misconduct lightly and fought back. This resulted in the other cops putting him in another police car with another officer for the journey to the children’s lockup.

Fleece’s mother was called to come and get him, but his mother opted to have Fleece spend the night in the Children’s lock up to teach him a lesson. The next day, the shooting that sneered Fleece was front page news in the papers.

In that instance Fleece’s family could have filed a law suit, suing the Police for misconduct, but his father perhaps fearing for Fleece’s safety went down to the children’s lock up and told the Police that the family would not file a law suit against Police.

Perhaps Fleece was too young to comprehend the actions of his father, but to Fleece he said that his father was talking crazy. So he ran out of the Children’s lock up, when he was outside the building. He saw two cops talking, one of them had his patrol car idling and Fleece jumped in the police patrol car and stole it.

By the time Fleece was thirteen, he was known to carry two nickel plated forty five caliber pistols. Fleece said that he used those pistols to rob crap games, drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, gays, drug dealers, sticking up everybody. He was the most feared teen in Louisville.

Fleece was also known to have no fear of the Police. For example, it was documented that while driving a stolen car, he came across some cops who had his Cousin on the ground in a full spread eagle position.  Fleece drew down on the cops and managed to disarm them and took his cousin and got away.

Fleece’s menacing ways finally caught up with him when he was sixteen years old. He was arrested on six counts of robberies, and eight counts of shooting assault. Fleece took a plea agreement to serve a twelve year term and was sent to the State Penitentiary to serve his time, even though is was against the state law to sentence a juvenile to serve time in an adult prison.

When he got to the Penitentiary, he caught the eye of some inmates who he robbed on the street. Those inmates and other predators thought that they would have a good day with Fleece. But, unknown to those predators, Fleece had two older brothers, and two cousins and a host of gangster friends that was locked up in the same Penitentiary that gave him some sort of protection.

Fleece was at that particular penitentiary getting into fights, but was not seriously attacked by others due to the presence of his brothers and cousins. However, he did get into an altercation with a dude, who Fleece described as being big and muscular who thought that Fleece was fresh meat.

That particular inmate was making moves to prey on Fleece. But Fleece made a pre-emptive strike on him, by using glass and stabbing him multiple times. Because of that action, the prison administration decided to send Fleece to Eddyville maximum security penitentiary.

At the age of 17, Fleece was the youngest inmate at the Eddyville maximum security prison. His first day, his impression of the prison atmosphere was that most prisoners were in their thirties and forties, and that they were staring at him. There were other prisoners laying around kissing, and an open display of homosexual activities. Fleece, was appalled that black prisoners were routinely being subjected to racism and being called niggers.

On Fleece’s second day at Eddyville, he got into a fight that took place in the kitchen area because of breaking a prisoner rule about eating cheese. The rule was that if someone ate cheese, according to inmate mentality that person is considered to be a rat.

Fleece, said that he knew nothing about the rule, all he knew that he wanted to put cheese on his hamburger, and when he asked for a slice of cheese. The person serving the food gave him a whole block of cheese. Another inmate told Fleece about the rule, and warned him that the other inmates will think that he is a rat if he didn’t get rid of the cheese. Fleece, being the person that he is, was defiant and dared someone to call him a rat just because he had a slab of cheese on his tray.

Fleece kept hearing some other inmates calling “rat, rat..” when he looked around, he saw that the inmates calling him a rat was a table of white inmates. Fleece went to that table and swung on everyone who was sitting on that table.

Fleece was placed in the hole because of his actions. The Justice committee decided to release him from the hole and put him back into the general population. Fleece believes that the racist mentality of the guards was that he would face inmate justice, the price for attacking a bunch of white prisoners.

Once out of the hole, an old black inmate approached Fleece, and said “I don’t know who you are, but I admired what you did.” The old inmate also stressed that he is too old to fight, and with that said, he gave Fleece a butcher knife aka, Bethlehem and told him that he is going to need it.   

Fleece saw that same group of inmates that he had the altercation with, he took the knife and ran up to them. Fleece’s thinking was that he knows that they would kill him, but he is going to take as many of them with him that he could.

Those same group of inmates implode Fleece to slow down because they didn’t come to fight. They said they didn’t know who made that rule about eating cheese. That they’ve been eating cheese all their life. This was the first situation that Fleece had to straighten out through negotiation. The cheese situation also got Fleece established.   

Another altercation happened when Fleece had to share a cell with another inmate, that he described as a big king Kong fighter type. This cell mate was intimidating Fleece making overtures that he wanted to fuck him. Fleece got out of that situation by stabbing the cell mate when he made the move.

Fleece did not know if that cell mate lived or died. Fleece was put in the hole, and the cell mate was transferred somewhere else.

Fleece did not have to spend much time in the hole, because the prison admin knew the type of person that his cell mate was, and that Fleece, likely did what he did in self-defense.  But, among Fleece’s fellow inmates, this altercation also established Fleece as a black man who will fight back. This made things easier for Fleece, because other inmates would think twice and avoided getting into any altercations with him.

Fleece, said that he came into the adult prison system as a teenager, that at that age, he had not even kissed a woman, or even have a sexual relationship with one. That after ten years in his bid, that masturbating and looking at porn magazines can get boring.

Being that young, lacking physical and psychological intimacy, and having no out let to release sexual tension, Fleece ended up doing what Romans do when in Rome. He started engaging in preying on fellow inmates for booty.

Fleece explains that there are men in the penitentiary who looked like women and act like a woman etc. In some retrospect, those sister males had so much power in the penitentiary that if you spoke to them in a dis-respectful manner, or you don’t address them as you would address a female, they would likely get their prison husbands/boyfriends to kill you.

Also, that a lot of people give off the persona of being a gangster, they act tough, but it is all a front. The biggest so-called gangsters end up engaging in homosexual activities, even if the person wasn’t gay to begin with. In Fleece’s experience, anyone that has done a long bid in prison has engaged in homosexual activities at some point.

It is one of those things that being deprived of intimacy, whether its psychological or physical, that you can’t really express genuine feelings of love because of the environment in the world of the Penitentiary can make a person do acts that is against their nature is a kin to being tortured.