It was very emotional for me during the holidays.
Thanksgiving wasn't the same.
Christmas wasn't the same.
I was so used to all the kids being there
that when he wasn't, I felt like I was cheating him.
And I wanted all the other kids to not come over,
or at least one of you.
Then I can put it in my head
that both of them were gone somewhere else, you know.
(phone rings)
Hello, this is a collect call
from an inmate at San Quentin State Penitentiary.
He had just happened to call and, you know,
of course I had to stop and talk to him.
Want me to take my phone out so it doesn't vibrate?
Yeah, we did the same thing,
but I keep it nearby 'cause he usually calls me.
My name is Debra Brumfiel French.
I grew up in Compton where I met my husband.
We were prom dates.
And we got married, and it's been 35 years this year.
We had four children and then adopted four children.
So now I have eight children.
We're a family, we're a tight-knit family.
You know, we've had our ups and downs
and we've had our tragedies as well.
DeAndre is my second born.
And he's always been my funny child.
I always called this my "Donald Duck,"
'cause he looked like Donald Duck on there to me.
He was such a sweet kid.
My favorite story of him is, DeAndre said,
"Mom, I'll take you to work."
I said, "How you gonna take me to work?"
And he's about 10.
He said, "On my bike.
You have to stand on the pegs."
And I didn't wanna break his spirit
and say "I'm not getting on that thing."
I said, "No, don't worry about it, I'll walk."
Because he was just that sweet kid
that always wanted to help.
I have not seen DeAndre in 10 years.
Because,
I think it's more because if I see him,
I have to feel it more than if I'm not seeing him.
I talk to him regularly.
It's almost like he's just at his house, we talk so much.
You know, he calls me, he tells me about his achievements.
Everyone else used to go visit.
My son, my daughter, and my husband.
They used to go and visit.
My dad.
Right when I was ready to go, the COVID happened.
An alarming trend in California's prison--
614 confirmed cases--
1,011 inmates tested positive
at San Quentin State Prison.
My son, he called me after he had been found in his cell
passed out on the floor.
He had all the symptoms, the fever, the chills.
He wasn't feeling good, no appetite.
So they sent him to isolation.
And normally he can call least once a day
or every other day.
But it wasn't like that.
During that time, the calls had got really slow.
It really made me nervous.
You know, this stuff is serious.
People are really dying from this.
So now I was waiting on his calls.
If he didn't call that week, I was worried.
Then I didn't hear from him.
My son has it.
I can't see him, I can't go to the prison.
I can't even call anybody to say, can you check on him.
Can you, you know, what is his progress, how's he doing.
Nothing.
So now they'll call me and say your son has passed away,
but they're not calling me to say your son is sick.
You know, I was really worried about getting that call.
Three inmates at San Quentin
have died over the weekend
from complications related to COVID-19.
In addition to nearly 1400 inmates there
who currently have the disease.
It was very frightening.
You know, I was staying up at night.
And I think about it, I think of what I could do.
And like I said, I'm to the point now,
I don't know which way to turn anymore.
You know, you don't wake up every day
and just know what the criminal system is like.
You learn it as you go along.
And I had never had a traffic ticket,
so I never knew anything.
Oh, the first time I was stopped by the police
is when they stopped me looking in my car for DeAndre,
and pulled guns on me in the middle of the street.
With my kids in the car, coming from a high school dance.
I never dealt with any of this.
This was all new to me.
(phone rings)
By the third week he called me,
but it wasn't from the jail call
with the minutes and all that.
It was a straight through call.
He was in the hospital.
He had been pooping out blood and spitting up blood.
He said, "You know mom, I could have died."
He still had to go back to San Quentin the next day,
back to isolation.
And he was there for like another two, three weeks.
And he pretty much just gotta fight it off.
He says, "So I work out, I try to keep my strength,
I try to make sure to eat even if I don't have an appetite,
because I wanna keep my strength."
So, and other than that,
no one from the prison ever told us anything.
We have been through a lot.
Some people have actually started calling me.
And I've talked to 'em and I tell them,
you know, kinda guide them.
So I've started a nonprofit organization called No Scraps,
to help with prison reform and recidivism,
to help people that are going through
what we're going through.
I've seen people working with the VA,
I've seen people working with the homeless,
they're working with all types of them, the mentally ill.
Nobody touches this department.
They's all like, "They're buttholes,
we don't wanna deal with them."
But they came from somewhere.
They didn't start off that way.
So holiday time, which is coming up now,
it's not easy for me, but I'm making it through.
And we do celebrate now.
We've never turned our back on each other.
We've always been there.
(phone rings)