Gunner Detroit - My Thing: Tales of a Reformed Gangster

This is a really funny and long story about the time I stole 25 lbs of weed, and then stole another 50, and had it stolen back from me, all in one week, ALL while I was getting high on coke and planning my great escape from Detroit to start a new life. You will have to watch Part #2 to hear how it ends. Karma, It always seems to win.

This is the second half of a crazy story that was about a week of my life when I was really off the rails, doing coke, robbing drug dealers, paranoid, doing all kinds of crazy stuff. It is kind of a funny story because I survived. I ended up right where I started off, full circle. Stupid criminal. I sit here and marvel at how I am still alive to tell these stories. That is how you know there is a God. LOL

In this video, I talk more about my early years, age 14-17, when I was out of control and hung around all the wrong people. I had a chip on my shoulder and was constantly feeling the need to prove myself. I did it though fighting and violence. This was also around the time I became young drug dealer. I just had NO positive role models or supervision. Sad, I was a really smart kid, too. I loved to read and all I ever watched was Mutual of Omaha's "Nature" shows. I read books on birds and wildlife. Privately, I was a nerd. Publicly, I was a trainwreck. Between my drunk father and sick mother, I mentally was in a dark place, and nobody seemed to care. I coped hy acting out. Sad.I never had a chance. I was voted "Most likely to end up on prison" while in 8th grade. Go figure.

I wanted to share in more detail how I came to be such a knucklehead in my teens and twenties, so new subscribers can have a better understanding of how I got there, how I ended up in prison, and whyI eventually decided to change my life and get to where I am today. Normal. Sort of. Depends who you ask My wife would argue the normal part LOL

I wanted to drop a series of videos that will give new subscribers a better look at my life and childhood, what ,Ade me turn down the wrong path, and what led me to a life of crime and, ultimately, prison, being a writer, and redemption. I think it is important for people to understand the origins of me, and what I was up against as a kid. Im[ossible odds. This isn't a pity party. This is just to illustrate what I was up against as a child and young man. when you hear about it, you will have a better understanding as to why I need up in prison, and why life is so special to me today;

This is the ending to a pretty remarkable story from my years in the streets. Johnny is now serving life in prison. He has been locked up 18 years and is still fighting for his freedom. BUT, he is where he belongs. Society cannot have men like him running around. I got caught up in this whole debacle on a fluke. Another cousin introduced me to a guy who said he had a major score. Sounded easy. Just steal a safe off a yacht. No big deal. I knew the marins well. I had partied on boats I pretended belonged to family members. I used my grandpa's name to get it. He was a well respected prominent member of the local community, always donating to charities, hosting big parties and barbecues. But everyone knew he was a mafia affiliated. His last name was Tocco, and he had grown up with Giacoma Tocco the reputed boss of the whole Mafia. They were around the same age, and spent a lot if the together over the years. To what level my grandpa was involved, I will never know. I can only say that he was around them his whole life, and very close to some of the top brass. He was a founding father of the church they all went to, and head of several clubs and societies they were all part of. So, when I walked into the Marina and told the security guards I was there to go to his boat, nobody questioned a thing. But this was a few years later, when Tony Giacolone, a mobster famous for being the number #1 suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance, got me a job working as a bouncer at a local nightclub, where much of the younger mob generations hung out. I got to knows some of them pretty good, as they all heard about me, from arrests to fights to scams and drugs. They liked me because I wasn't like them. They were white collar guys. I was more of a street guy, a tough guy. There were't many of these left in the mob by then. Their fathers and grandfathers had pruned them to the white collar racketeers, not gangsters. Less prison time. More money. But I didn't have that luxury. I was just a nobody street guy with the wrong last name. Soi I made a reputation out of fighting and brawling and generally acting like a knucklehead, So they asked me to spearhead this boat scam, since I said I had a "box man" who could get into safes That was probably out of line. Johnny wasn't;t a real box man. Bu I had seen him get into a couple safes over the years. Mostly brute force. So brought him in. The problem was, the guy who laid out the play was an old time gangster from Chicago, a dangerous guy who was probably 50 at the time. My uncle Pete Tocco Jr warned me to be careful around him. He was the real deal. The play went off without a hitch, but it was only a small score. Not the $200K we were told it would be. Johnny was pissed. That;'s when things went bad. Have a listen. The story coms full circle 20 years later while I am in prison. Truly bizarre and remarkable. You will see. The street life can be crazy, and sometimes stranger than fiction. Enjoy. And know that this is not who I am. I only share these old war stories so you can see how far I have come, NOT to glorify that life or these kinds of people. Today I am a good man, honest, kind, faithful, loving and wouldn't take a dollar from a person unless I earned it. That is the reason my wife fell in love with me. That is the reason my friends love me. They, real ones, are few and far between, but they know my heart. I am NOT the guy in this video, I just want to illustrate how change can really happen. It is a mindset. I wold never go back to that kind of life. Ever. I would rather be dead. I love my life today, at my quiet homestead, and shudder at these memories. Scares me that I once behaved like this, and were around men who behaved even worse. a LOT worse. And found into be normal. That is scary. website www.gunnerdetroit.com Books https://www.amazon.com/BE-KING-Gunner-Lindbloom/dp/1520399944 Apparel ]http://www.ourthingapparel.com Shorts http://www.nationalcrimesyndicate.com/lindbloom-chronicles-first-memory/ The Syndicate http://www.nationalcrimesyndicate.com/the-syndicate-episode-1/ Patreon patreon.com/gunnerdetroit Audio book https://www.gunnerdetroit.com/to-be-a-king-audiobook

This is the first half of one of my craziest stories. I originally was reluctant to share it because of the violence it resulted in. BUT, I concluded that there is a valuable moral lesson to learn from it. In that life, be it the mafia or street life, you are dealing with a class of criminals who don't have any value for human life. They have no honor at all. Everyone is out to stab the next guy in the back, be it over money, status, position, or power. There are no altruists in the underworld, out to help their "friends" or fellow man.The world revolves around thenm and them only. I was a strange anomaly in that regard. I actually valued my friends and family. That was how I was raised by my grandpa. I protected them. I stood up for them. I fought for them. An sometimes did worse for them. I would have died for them in a blink, without question. But in the end, not a single one ever cared about me. Most were jealous or scared of me. The only friends who ever cared were a few civilian friends who knew the real me was not a bad guy, but in fact a good guy, a talented and gated and gentle spirt who loves people and loves the world, not a sociopath that most of the word thought I was. This story (be sure to finish by watching part 2) is truly a bizarre and remarkable example of how cutthroat the underworld can be. My cousin would ultimately decide a man's life had less value than a few thousands dollars. But it doesn't end the way you think. Just make sure to watch the second half of the story tomorrow. I have literally hundreds of stories like this I will be uploading here soon. Not all are as twisted as this one. Some ae just funny and anecdotal. Some are ingenious scams and rackets. There are bar brawls. con men, gunfights, and plenty of guys who have lived that life but survived to tell their story like me. I was never anyone noteworthy in the mafia, Just a tough young kid in an era when there were few, if any, true tough guys left. It was the generation of silver spoon white collar mafipsi, while I was a well known as a fighter, brawklerm, and general rabble-rouser. A few old relics from the old days took notice and took a liking to me. Wen they needed a little muscle, they would sometimes give me a call. A common misconception made by the obsessed mob groupies pn Youtube is they think I have claimed to be some big shot in the mob. I find it funny. That is how I know they never even watched any of my shows. I never said I was anyone. I simply was around the old guard as a kid, and would later work for a few old men in my 20s. I did some things that mob guys do. Intimidate. Beat. Scam. Rob, Hustle. Threaten. Ron Steal. I did it all and paid the price--13 years in prison. I was just a nobody kid, a thug more than mofiosi. BUT, I did work for some high level guys. And they did like me, because I was a hungry and a guy would would send a guy a "message" if a message needed to be sent. Most of my silver spoon coins, with their famous Italian mob last names, were soft as cake. They would piss themselves if I handed them a gun and said, "Come on, it's time to work," And that is fine. Not everyone is meant to be a gangster. I can only speak for myself and who I once wa--a serious bad guy who did seriously bad things. But I paid a serious price That life is long behind me, other than a few obsessed mob groupies who live in their basement and troll every video I post to claim I'm a liar, simply because they can't find evidence of my life on Google, outside my rap sheet. They don't get that 99.999% of that world will never be found on Google, in a court doc or a fed file. It is a secret society, nott a popularity contest for Youtube. LOL If crimes are public knowledge, something went terribly wrong. I will start uploading some of my best shows for new subscribers to watch. I have hundreds of "episodes." The production value in some better than others. I was new to this. Never set out to be a YouTuber. Just wanted to bring awareness to my novels. That is still my goal. Some of my stories will blow you mind. I was just a spoke in a great big wheel. I share things you never hear about in the news or in movies, the day to day life of a young hustler, mafioso, or street guy trying to survive another day surrounded by scumbags and criminal-minds sociopaths. Some will indeed sound like fiction. But once you get to know me through more of my shows, and look into my background, you will see that every story is 100% authentic and real. But if you really want a great story, a mind blowing, change your life old school mafia story, sit own and read my books. Start with the reviews. They are 100% organic Today, I live a beautiful quiet happy life in rural norther MIchigan with my incredible wife. I have 4 cats, 6 chickens, and 2o0 acres in my version of paradise. I am finishing up a new novel--a political thriller--amd when I am not working on that, or my radio show, I can be found out trout fishing, camping, riding my toys, or hunting. My life is perfect.I am happy. I feel like I have already won the prize, But I have something brewing that is kufe changing. I wont jinx it by talking about it, but it is as big as it gets. And it will make it so I never have to do anything but take y friends fishing for the rest of m life. Hope you stick around and join me.Lots of stories to come. Not all pleasant. But all will entertain, and all will showcase how in life when we really want to change, we can. If I can anyone can. I am proof. Website www.gunnerdetroit.com Books https://www.amazon.com/BE-KING-Gunner-Lindbloom/dp/1520399944 Apparel http://www.ourthingapparel.com Short stories (4 million reads) http://www.nationalcrimesyndicate.com/lindbloom-chronicles-first-memory/ The Syndicate Pilot http://www.nationalcrimesyndicate.com/the-syndicate-episode-1/ Patreon patreon.com/gunnerdetroit