Shaykh Uthman

So I said, if I go in my car, and I had an old gangster looking car, so they might confuse me for another gang, or they might figure out it's me.

And like I said, the hood had like lookouts.

These young guys, we'd pay them just to be on rooftops that if they saw something, they used to have these old cell phones, and they would page a code that meant either cops or enemies or whatever.

So I said, they see me, they're going to send a code.

It's going to might just start shooting.

So I said, I'm not going to go armed.

I'm going to be unarmed and I'm going to walk.

And I was wearing like a thobe, like a robe like this.

And I had like a turban on and I started to grow my beard out.

So I looked different.

So I can't even, and this is, this is 1995.

So, I mean, this is not like, you know, people didn't know what a Muslim was at the time.

So I was walking into the alley and at first they didn't recognize me.

They were just like, who's this weird looking guy in a dress or whatever.

Right.

When I got closer and they recognized me, they were like, what's this guy doing here?

So one of my really good friends that I grew up with, he was also a leader in the gang, and I remember him very well.

I remember till today, he looked at me, he said, he goes, I swear to God, you will not walk out of this alley alive.

You know, we were thinking how to kill you in a way that you don't kill a lot of us.

And you walked here.