The Boy Who Robbed to Survive

The Boy Who Robbed to Survive: A True Story from the Streets

My name is Jalen, and I was 14 the first time I pointed a gun at someone’s face.

Not because I wanted to hurt them.

Not because I was evil.

Because I was hungry.

I grew up in West Baltimore, where sirens were louder than school bells and nobody flinched at gunshots. My mom worked three jobs and still couldn’t keep the lights on. My dad? Left when I was six. Drugs, maybe. Prison, probably.

By the time I was 13, I knew how to cook noodles without a stove and hide under a bed when bullets cracked the windows. I also knew that “help” wasn’t coming.

The first time I stole something, it was a sandwich.

The second time, it was a wallet.

The third time?

A Glock 19.

It wasn’t mine, of course. It belonged to D-Rock, a local dealer who let me run errands for him—pickup jobs, drop-offs, small-time stuff. He liked me because I was quiet and quick. Said I had “good instincts.”

One day, he tossed me the pistol and said, “Time to level up, little homie.”

That night, I followed a man leaving a liquor store. He wore a suit. Probably someone’s dad. Probably never missed a meal in his life.

I told myself it was just business.

Pulled the gun. Asked for his wallet.

He raised his hands. Voice trembling. Gave me everything.

I didn’t shoot. Didn’t need to.

I ran with $73, a gold watch, and more guilt than I could carry.

I wish I could say I stopped.

I didn’t.

The money bought food. Shoes. Heat. Even helped my mom, though she never asked where it came from.

But something inside me broke that night. And once it’s broken, it’s easy to keep falling.

By 15, I had a name on the streets: Lil Fade.

Not because I cut hair—but because I disappeared fast.

I was fast. Smart. Careful.

Until I wasn’t.

It was December when everything came crashing down.

Me and my crew—Tay, Smoke, and Rico—were planning a gas station job. Nothing fancy. In and out. Scare the clerk, grab the cash, disappear.

But Rico, high off pills, pulled the trigger before we even got the money.

The bullet hit the clerk in the shoulder.

Blood sprayed the lottery tickets.

We ran.

But the cameras saw everything.

Two days later, the cops found us.

Rico resisted. Got slammed to the ground.

Tay cried. Smoke lied.

Me?

I said nothing.

Just like D-Rock taught me.

Juvenile detention is a cold place.

Not just the walls, but the people. The stares. The weight of knowing you’re 15 and already have a rap sheet longer than some adults.

I spent 11 months locked up.

Did school behind bars.

Ate meals off a tray that smelled like bleach.

The guards didn’t care. The counselors said I had “potential.”

I didn’t believe them.

Until I met Mr. Cain.

He was a teacher. Ex-cop, actually. Came to juvie twice a week to teach writing.

Said, “If you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it wrong.”

I didn’t trust him.

But he kept showing up.

One day, he handed me a notebook and said, “Write the truth. Not what you tell your boys. Not what you post online. The real truth.”

So I did.

I wrote about hunger.

Fear.

The night I cried in an alley after my first robbery.

The nightmares I had after the gas station job.

I wrote about being 10 years old and wishing my mom would stop crying in the kitchen every night.

Mr. Cain read it all. Never judged. Just listened.

I was released the week I turned 17.

The streets were still waiting for me.

So was D-Rock.

“You ready to eat again?” he asked, handing me a burner phone.

I looked at the phone.

Then at the notebook in my backpack.

I shook my head.

“Nah,” I said. “I’m done being hungry like that.”

He laughed. “You won’t last a week.”

He was wrong.

I got a job stocking shelves at a grocery store. Took GED night classes. Wrote my story into 90 pages of raw truth.

And last year?

I read that story at a youth conference in Philly.

Kids who looked just like me sat in silence as I read the line:

“I was never born a criminal—I just ran out of choices.”

Now I’m 21.

I work as a youth counselor.

I still live in the city.

But this time, I’m not running.

Every week, I visit juvie—just like Mr. Cain did.

I hand out notebooks.

And I tell boys like I used to be:

“You can’t outrun your past—but you can rewrite what comes next.”

So yeah, I robbed people.

I scared people.

I made mistakes that can never be erased.

But I’m still here.

Still writing.

Still trying.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what redemption looks like.