{"id":3966,"date":"2018-09-24T18:52:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T18:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/lavie\/?p=3966"},"modified":"2018-09-24T18:52:25","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T18:52:25","slug":"life-changing-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2018\/09\/24\/life-changing-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Life-changing decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Gilroy \u201819, staff writer<\/p>\n

Former NFL player Brian Banks spoke\u00a0at LVC in early September\u00a0about making the right choices and how a false accusation permanently changed his life.<\/p>\n

His presentation, \u201cJustice for All and the Power of Choice,\u201d stressed the importance of self-love and how to handle daily situations along with his grueling experience of social injustice.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one will work harder for you than you,\u201d\u00a0Banks\u00a0said. \u201cIt\u2019s not what you go through that defines everything, it\u2019s how you deal with it that defines everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u00a0mindset did not come by choice and Banks told his story of a wrongful conviction and how he worked towards an opportunity that did not yet exist.<\/p>\n

In 2002, while attending Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California, Banks was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Banks faced 41 years to life in prison.\u00a0He was 16 years old.<\/p>\n

With limited options, he was tried as an adult and eventually accepted a plea deal\u00a0which included\u00a0five years in prison\u00a0and\u00a0five years of probation. He was ordered to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet and register as a sex offender.<\/p>\n

Nine years later, Banks\u2019 accuser, Wanetta Gibson, friend requested him on Facebook and sent a message\u00a0and said\u00a0she wanted to \u201clet bygones be bygones.\u201d<\/p>\n

After\u00a0Banks\u00a0received\u00a0Gibson\u2019s friend request,\u00a0Banks\u00a0called private investigator Freddie Parish and asked for help. Through a series of interviews, Gibson confessed to Parish that she lied about the assault and Banks never sexually assaulted her, nor did he kidnap her.<\/p>\n

While on probation and after serving a total of five years and two months in prison, the confession proved Banks\u2019 innocence and his case was overturned\u00a0a decade later\u00a0on May 24, 2012. The dismissed charges also released Banks from his sex-offender status and allowed him to continue his football career.<\/p>\n

He initially tried out for the Seattle Seahawks but did not make the team. After considerations and tryouts from other NFL teams, he eventually signed with the Atlanta Falcons in April 2013.<\/p>\n

To this day, Banks doesn\u2019t know why everything went so wrong, so fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe never admitted to why she made the lies up,\u201d\u00a0Banks said.<\/p>\n

Banks\u00a0told students to love themselves first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a test, its life,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat you do in this moment will determine what happens afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n

rg004@lvc.edu<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Gilroy \u201819, staff writer Former NFL player Brian Banks spoke\u00a0at LVC in early September\u00a0about making the right choices and how a false accusation permanently changed his life. His presentation, \u201cJustice for All and […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}