A Good Week?

Sooooo following the little drama from my previous post with the Amber Alert, I still had to work the remainder of Memorial Day weekend. In total, it was a four-day stretch of 12-hour shifts.

Well, I'm happy to be employed. And it ended up being a better week than I thought. The day after the Amber Alert caper, I worked with another probationary officer. We had a routine day on Saturday, for the most part. We were volunteered to transport some juvenile shooting incident arrestee to Sylmar Juvenile Detention Center, right out of roll call.

A word on that. While up there dropping this young idiot off, I spoke with a great guy who was on the last few days of a 38-year career as a Los Angeles County Probation Officer. Despite the guys cheery disposition (he is retiring after all) we processed our guy and he walked us out with some serious conversation. Here is thing. After a career spent mostly in the field, he eventually hung it up to work at The Hall because political correctness in all its ugliest forms had finally come to take over his job.

Why, there was a time when this Probation Officer was working the field and on his recommendation alone a kid would get violated and receive boot camp, hall time, whatever. But in this day and age, he told me, all we do is tell you officers "Cite 'em and release 'em." It made him sick. Two 16-year-old boys break into your house, disable the alarm, steal all your stuff and get caught down the street by the cops. Cite and release. This is police vernacular for a citation with a court date to follow. The juvenile offender is then released to the "responsible party" i.e. the knucklehead parent that couldn't keep them off the streets to begin with.

He related a story of a juvenile who had been involved in a drive-by shooting in the valley. The victim gets shot in the head, lives, but a good bleeder with a cracked skull. It could have killed him. This idiot suspect kid gets caught on a Friday, let's say, booked into the Juvenile Hall that night, his probation violated, the Probation Officer writes his report and heads home for the weekend.

The PO gets a phone call at home a couple days later. Y'know, conversation goes something like this:

LAPD Detective on phone: Hey buddy, this is Detective Moe Lasses from Valley Division, handling that attempt murder case with the drive-by gangster kid. We're filing a case on him and want to interview him, but your Juvenile Hall can't find him in the system....

Old-Timer PO: What the hell? I just put that kid in on Friday! Today is Monday! He got booked into The Hall for attempt murder! Let me make some calls...

The PO proceeds to call records and intake at The Hall and guess what? Cited and released. The Hall was too full, his supervisor decided. This kid ain't going anywhere. Put him back out on the street. You can only imagine how mad that PO was when he heard it. Well, long story short, he's retired by now and I wish him the best.

Drove around, handled a few radio calls after that. Last call of the day comes. Possible Male 5150 WIC (Male subject suffering from mental disorder). Comments say he has been put on a 72-hour hold before and is causing problems for his mom and dad. He's in his mid-twenties and has not been taking meds.

Well, we get there and the parents are in their early 50's. The subject is their son and he CLEARLY has a learning disability of some sort. Mom confirms he has autism and has been in full time board and care-type facilities since he was 16 years old. Worst thing he did today, though, was throw his clothing around because he couldn't find his underwear. That and being another victim.

He's a victim of being kicked out of the facility he was in over in the South End that got closed abruptly due to a state licensing investigation. He's a victim of being born with autism. He's a victim of being born into a middle class family that loves him and followed all the rules and did what they were told by teachers, counselors, the court, the Regional Center, the City, the County, etc. all to no avail and their son suffers and their health suffers because they can't adequately care for him.

And do you know what it means to realize you've tried every damn thing, you followed the rules and you can't even take care of the only kid you had? When you realized the responsible thing to do was not have anymore kids because they might be handicapped in some way too? When you have to sign your kid away to a full-time care facility because you already had a heart attack and your husband has a stroke risk because of the stress of taking care of your only child?

Geez. This kid isn't a 5150. He's mentally challenged. And how the hell do me and my partner fix in 30 minutes a situation that took 25 years to get to this? No one has been able to come up with a long-term solution. The parents are snipping at each other, but you could tell they were at their wits end. They looked like World War I trench fighters; shell-shocked, dazed, lost in the haze. I told them that a 5150 hold wasn't a long-term solution. I told them what I knew about children with developmental disabilities, from personal experience. I tried to put them at ease and told them I would try to help them with some sort of solution.

But you know what? They told me another officer had helped them two days prior. And they knew his name. And they liked him. And he was working so I got him over the air and he showed up with his partner, a senior officer. Well, we all noodled over this problem and finally the other training officer suggested we call County Adult Protective Services as they might be able to assist in starting a case and finding some kind of full-time care for this guy.

Their son was in his mid-twenties. Due to his developmental disability, he had slightly slurred speech but you could understand every word he said. And he understood we were attempting to reconcile his fate. Several times while we were there, he was sitting in a chair in the living room saying, "Mom and Dad....I be good. I'll take my medicine. I sorry....I sorry... I be good." His dad said to me, "Do you know what it's like to have a kid so big, but he's like a baby? Like a baby? But with that strength like a big guy?"

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

"Thank you officers, so much, for helping us. Thank you." These parents had shown me at least 12 business cards from neighboring police divisions and agencies - from Sergeants to Detectives to Officers in the field. I know each one of those people tried. And so did I...

Talked to the County Social Worker handling the case....he is hopeful they can help out that family.

Yeah, that's another good day.