When TikToker @fromprisontoprosperity was nine years old, she became a felon. For some context, her mother was 15 when she was born, her grandmother was 28, and her great-grandmother was 39. She was born into a very young family, and they were still trying to figure out their own lives.
She went into foster care at nine years old because her mom was in jail. Her grandmother was raising her and her siblings before they had to go to foster care.
There were six of them at the time, and @fromprisontoprosperity was the oldest. But while her grandmother was raising them, her grandmother’s husband murdered her. So, she and her siblings wound up in foster care.
With such a tough upbringing, @fromprisontoprosperity started acting up at school. She was in fourth or fifth grade and was the line leader at school.
But on one particular day, the teacher let another student be the line leader instead, and she got upset about it.
After this boy led the class back to the classroom from lunch, she walked up to him and slapped him. They ended up getting into a fight. The teacher tried to break them apart but had to call for backup.
“I started going crazy, like having a full temper tantrum, kicking over desks, yelling, screaming, so the teacher called the people in the office, and when the principal came to the class, they were trying to get me to calm down,” said @fromprisontoprosperity.
“I wouldn’t calm down, so they called the police, and I was nine years old.”
The police attempted to put her in handcuffs, but she bit an officer on the hand and ran away. She sprinted out of the school and across the street to a church.
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She hid underneath a van, and the police found her 30 to 40 minutes later. They arrested her and sent her to a juvenile assessment center.
She was booked in for battery on a law enforcement officer, which is a felony, as well as battery for hitting a kid, trespassing, and disturbing a school function.
Overall, she had one felony and four misdemeanors.
She was released to her foster parents. After @fromprisontoprosperity was released from juvie, she went to court and was put on probation. Her mom was already going through the process of getting the kids back.
“Somewhere in between my mom getting us back from foster care and us living with her, I was on probation,” she said. “I never went back to court. I never heard nothing about it.”
Fast forward to when she was 14 years old, and they had moved to Orlando, Florida. One day, she was stealing quarters from the soda machine at the recreation center near her house when she got caught by the manager.
The manager called the police, and they let her off with a trespassing warning. They told her not to come back to the park. But just as they got to her house, they realized that she had a warrant for her arrest, so they couldn’t actually release her.
The police explained to her mother that she had a warrant in St. Petersburg for six years. They took her to kiddie jail in Orlando for 20 days, and then she was transferred to St. Petersburg for 21 days, after which she stood in front of the judge.
The judge put her on probation for a year for the charges she committed when she was nine years old.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
