Willard Jimerson Jr. is a dedicated community leader and advocate with profound expertise derived from his own lived experiences. His understanding of community issues is deeply personal, having served time in prison from the ages of 13 to 33—a total of 20.5 years from 1994 to 2014. This makes him one of the youngest in the country to face such a sentence, which profoundly shapes his approach to community safety, public health, and youth development. In Pt.1 of this reasoning, Willard Jimerson tells the story behind his murder conviction at the age of 13 and how it impacted his family.