My name is Donny Button. I’m a 29-year-old white male and a born-again believer and follower of Christ. I am currently serving time in solitary confinement (the hole) at Washington State Penitentiary for robbing a bank in Clarkston, Washington. I’m in the hole for being the leader of a white supremacist gang and planning to kill a correctional officer. I’m the highest secured inmate in the state and will remain in solitary confinement until my release in 3/27/2017. I came to prison at 20 years old and since then I have been let out twice, only to return back to prison within a couple months.
Growing up, I was often told if I didn’t change my behavior I would end up in prison, so it was no surprise to anyone when I got busted by the DEA for smuggling 80 pounds of pot across the Canadian border and ended up in federal prison. Before I came to prison, I took all the love and help my family and friends showed me for granted. They all bent over backwards to try and help me. They forgave me every time I blew it or betrayed them. They had always been there for me and showed me nothing but compassion and love. I repaid them by taking whatever I could from them and spitting in their face.
After my arrival in prison I was pulled up by the woods, “solid white boys” who schooled me and made a strong impression on me. They were gangsters and I wanted to be like them. Over the first couple of years I made a name for myself as a solid white boy. I felt like I was worth something, like I finally found my calling. I eventually became well known, feared, and respected. I learned and practiced neo-nazi philosophy until I rose in ranks to second in command in the white supremacist gang, “The Aryan Family.” I stabbed a black man in the neck three times, brutally assaulted several other inmates and correctional officers, dealt drugs, extorted weak inmates, and reprimanded other inmates. I got swastikas, racist, and demon tattoos all over my body. I hated people for the color of their skin or religion, especially Jews and Christians. I hurt a lot of people and did a lot of bad things. This is just a summary of what I’ve done in prison to give you an idea of what kind of person I was. I set out on a path of self-destruction leaving pain and misery in my wake, with a total disregard for anyone but myself. A few years ago after a two year stretch in solitary confinement (the hole) I thought I discovered God, and was saved. I felt I had changed and I wanted out of the Aryan Family and the criminal way of life. I wanted my life back. I contacted the gang task force and told them how I felt. They said they would help me but first I would have to help them. I agreed and they transferred me to a low risk medium prison, where I was supposed to help locate drugs or corrupt staff bringing in dope. I thought I could do that but it turned out I couldn’t. My faith in God was superficial; I fooled myself into thinking it was real. Within the first week of my arrival I was high on meth and I took control of the entire prison. I corrupted a female staff member and soon after I had her bring me ounces of heroin, meth, and marijuana along with several cell phones. I had inmates assaulted and I called the shots.
I went right back into the life I was trying to leave. It didn’t take the gang task force long to see I wasn’t going to help them and I was playing both sides of the fence. Back to solitary confinement I went. The woman got fired; she also had a husband and a daughter. I don’t know what affect this had on her family.
I burned all my bridges; I was facing some serious decisions, pulled in several directions. I just wanted to escape from it all. I felt every option I had was wrong, and I decided to kill myself. I was too much of a coward to hang myself or cut my wrists, but I figured if I killed a correctional officer they would have to give me the death penalty. I had a steel shank and I planned on stabbing a correctional officer in the chest. Thank God that before I could do it I got a surprise shake down and the weapon was found.
Then I was moved to where I now sit writing this testimony. I also got elevated to the very top of my gang and I had control of all the white boys in every prison in Washington State. Because of my behavior I was stripped of everything. No mattress, no clothes, no blankets, no hot meals, no mail, no phone calls, no papers, no pens, no books, no bible, no nothing except underwear and socks and just 24-7 of staring at the wall and thinking. I held on to the hope that I was now the big boss man and had control over everyone, but this wasn’t much consolation and soon faded. Then guilt, remorse, self-pity, bitterness, fear, and self hate slowly crept into my mind. Then it took over until every day was a living hell with nothing to distract me. I was forced to take a very long, very hard look at myself and my life and what I had done to others and all those who loved me. I felt like scrooge on the night before Christmas when he was forced to really look at himself. There was no more smoke and mirrors, no more self-deception, for the first time. I could not run from the problem but had to face it. Then the questions started coming in, the Big Why. Why did I do that to people I loved? Why did I throw away my life? Why was I sitting in a 9x12-foot cell sleeping on concrete when I could be on the streets with a wife and kids, eating popcorn on the couch, watching movies? What in the heck was I doing? Who did I impress? Just what was I trying to accomplish, besides ruining my life and others? For who? People I don’t really know, who don’t even care about me whether I live or die, why? So people would think I was cool, so I could prove I was a man, that I was tough and not scared of anything? Why would I throw my life away? To prove a point? No one cared, the joke was on me, and I was a coward. It was all in vain, a complete waste. Instead of being the big man on campus, I had become the biggest loser of them all.
After 29 years, I had finally seen everything for what it was, and I did not like what I had seen, and I could not look away. I had literally been reduced to nothing. My situation seemed impossible and unbearable. I did not think I could survive another minute. I had no hope, no reason to live, I had no strength left to keep fighting. What was the use? My life was over. I hit rock bottom for real and this is when I hit my knees and cried out to God with my soul and entire being, one word: Help! I did not say it with my mouth or my mind; I spoke with a groan from the depths of my soul. And praise God, He answered me. He comforted me right then and there. I eventually got a Bible and change began to occur in me, a real change from the inside. I accepted Jesus as my Lord; I finally understood what it was all about. I didn’t just read His word like a novel, I drank it in and it gave me life. God spared me and showed me mercy after all I had done, when all my reasoning, philosophy, worldly wisdom and everything else could not save me from this world or myself. The one true God came through and lifted me out of this pit of hell when I had no hope and was tormented day and night by my past and guilt. When I felt sorry for myself and was filled with the darkness of bitterness and hate, He gave me peace, hope, love, joy, strength, light, and life.
He gave me the courage to stand on my own two feet as a man and walk away from the Aryan Family for good, to publicly denounce gangs and stand against them. He humbled me so that I could apologize to some men in here who I had persecuted in the past, but now I call my brothers in Christ. He gave me purpose and meaning to my life. By all rights I should be the most miserable inmate in the state of Washington, but you can ask around I’m one of the happiest. I smile all day, sing, laugh, and have no worries. Of course everyone thinks I’m faking, but you can’t fake something like that in a place this dark. God printed a goal in my heart and I plan to turn my situation into a positive result that will bear lots of fruit. I can use this experience to teach kids and young adults about the realities of drugs, crime, and gang life. I want to help people, not to hurt them. By the power of God’s grace, as everyone will soon be a witness to, He took the chief of sinners, an evil, lying, manipulative extremely violent, selfish, hate-filled man, who was going to commit murder, then suicide, and then turned this same man into an instrument of His love to help others, to spread the gospel, and to be a shining light of God’s grace in this place of darkness demonstrating God’s power to change anybody. Amen.
