PINE BLUFF -- Drue Griffin knows all about the life of a gangster.
He can talk about the extravagant lifestyle that is often associated with being a gangster. He can talk about the girls, the jewelry and the expensive cars with their spinning gold rims.
It's the other side of that life that he mostly talks about these days.
Griffin, 35, grew up a gangster on the streets of Pine Bluff, but that lifestyle ended when he was shot in November 2011. It was the 14th time he'd been shot, only this time the bullet sliced through his collarbone and left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Now he spends his days in a wheelchair and jokes that if someone put a case with $1 million next to him, he couldn't lean down to pick it up.
His feet are damaged so badly from the trauma he's endured that he can't wear shoes. There are large gaps where teeth are missing after he was shot in the mouth, and little grip in his handshake because of the damage the bullets have done to his body.
Griffin doesn't dwell on what the gangster life has taken from him. Instead, he shares his story as a warning with youths across the state who may be considering making some of the same choices he made.
"They know I've lived the street life," Griffin said. "Once they see me and listen to me and pay attention, they are going to realize the situation of how I lived that street. A lot of kids go about selling drugs and robbing and thinking there is no consequences.
"I tell them the real truth about the streets."
Griffin spoke Wednesday to a group of 10- to 14-year-olds at Southeast Middle School. The youths are part of the Police and Youth Empowerment group put together by Pine Bluff Police Chief Jeff Hubanks and area educators. Teachers recommend at-risk students who they believe may be on the verge of making the types of mistakes Griffin made when he fell into a life of crime.
Students took part in a camp last week, and they have each been assigned a mentor who will help them throughout the year. Mentors offer support by talking with the kids and taking part in recreational activities such as basketball, and they keep tabs on how the students are progressing in school.
Griffin had a simple message.
"You don't want to go to prison," he said. "I've seen people get raped, robbed and beat. You may feel untouchable, but you aren't.
"They aren't going to stop making wheelchairs, the funeral homes aren't going to stop making caskets, and the prisons don't stop making beds."
Griffin said he didn't know how he would make it at first, having to spend the rest of his life using a wheelchair, but he said he now believes God had a plan for him.
Hubanks believes it, too. After Griffin spoke to the students, Hubanks shared a story from the Bible about how God used a burning bush to speak to the prophet Moses about what to do.
Hubanks told the children to remember the date as the day God sent Griffin to Southeast Middle School to tell them what they needed to hear.
"It is no mistake y'all are here right now," Hubanks said. "One day God is going to ask you if you have heard this today."
Hubanks and Pine Bluff Assistant Police Chief Ivan Whitfield have worked together for more than three decades. During that time, they have been involved with more than 200 homicide investigations.
The thought of standing over the bodies of so many young men who could have made different choices is the reason Hubanks and Whitfield want to get the message out to youths that the gangster life isn't as glamorous as it may seem.
"We are tired of seeing the same thing over and over again," Hubanks said.
State Desk on 08/15/2016