PTSD 5:06 PM

It changes you to work with criminals for a living.

Other people don't get it.

There are a lot of stupid things I do because of traumatic things I've seen. It might seem crazy to you, if you watched my little routine, but if you'd seen what I've seen, it would make perfect sense.

For instance, one of my clients, a female gang member, her little baby cousin was kidnapped out of an open window, raped and murdered, and left dead beside a canal. She was just a baby, only 2 years old, named Rosie. The case was never solved. And I had a daughter who was close to the same age. Working with that family, and my client, spending hours dealing with their agony and pain, and then going home to my kids...it fucked me up, a little bit.

I don't let ANYONE in my house sleep with the windows open. It's been 12 years now. I just can't. I don't do it, I don't let my kids do it, even when the weather is perfect. I suck it up and pay the higher air conditioning bill.

I think that's what ostensibly "normal" people don't understand. When you have seen the unthinkable, lived with it, gotten your head around it...it changes you.

"Normal" people don't want to think that the unthinkable could happen. They go home from work, eat dinner, watch a little American Idol, and go to bed at 10 p.m., thinking they will be safe. They have no idea what happens on the other side of town at 2 a.m.

There's a whole different world out there that normal people, if they are lucky, never see. Normal people keep from going crazy like me through use of the thin illusion of safety. They assume that dangerous horrible things will never touch them at the grocery story, or the shopping mall, or the movie theater.

And I've seen the bodies of two kids who shot each other to death at a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, and worked with their grieving families. They exchanged 30 rounds. Any one of those rounds could have hit an old lady, or a little kid, or someone's mom or dad.

Life is so fucking random.

The reality is that bad shit happens all the time to all kinds of people with no rhyme or reason, the worst things you can even imagine, that stuff really happens. You sleep at night by telling yourself it never could. You glance at the newspaper stories and quickly forget them because that could never be you, oh never be you. And if it does happen, the stuff of nightmares that you cram back into your tired brain at 6 a.m. when the alarm goes off, there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. It happens way too fast.

There are kids in your community who would shoot you for hubcaps or kill your kid for a pair of shoes, and not spend a moment on regret.

The world is a dangerous place. Most people in America don't realize how dangerous it really is.

The kids I've worked with were always carrying guns. They had hair-trigger tempers. They could do the worst imaginable thing in the next second. Working with them changed me, forever.

I can't go to the mall, or the movie theater, or the grocery store without watching my surroundings and paying attention to what is going on.

I see groups of kids congregating at the local mall, they look like gang members, and I'm hustling my kids out of there. Other people aren't even paying attention.

But, I've seen innocent bystanders get shot in the mall. or, in front of the movie theater. Or in front of a traffic light.

I probably dealt with (easily) 100+ gang homicides in my years in the department, plus others that have involved former clients since that time. You see that stuff for years, and it changes how you think.

I don't sit with my back to the door in restaurants. I'll always take the booth that faces the entrance if I can.

I know, for example, that the safest place in or around a car, if shooting starts, is behind the engine block, down close to the ground, where a bullet can't pass through the metal, and you are unlikely to get hit by a ricochet.

I learned never to sit in front of a window in my clients' homes, but to choose a seat behind a bookcase or an exterior wall.

I learned never to drive a fancy car or wear much jewelry, you don't want to give anyone a reason to rob you.

I learned to watch, always watch, everyone in my vicinity. I stare at people's tattoos, looking for gang/prison symbols. I look at their clothes, watching for gang paraphernalia.

I don't park in parking lots at hotels these days, I only valet. I don't like the idea of walking around in a dark and lonely parking lot, may just well as slap a sticker on your face that says, "Rape me, please."

My personal warning level is always at orange. People would probably call me paranoid if they really knew the thoughts inside my head. I call my ongoing hyper-alert form of paranoia a close relationship with reality.

As my former boss always used to say, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you."

Karma 5:04 PM

I have been spending a lot of time reading the blog of a girl who is currently a crime reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune. Just spending a half hour on her blog today dredged up some memories. Richard Whackman asked me when I would tell a story. So, here is a story, about karma (sort of), inspired by Erin's blog.

Once upon a time, in a mid-sized city, a gang member holed up in his room, brandishing a pistol and threatening to kill himself.

Dave, the officer involved, spent about 4 hours talking to the gang member, and eventually persuaded him to give up his gun peacefully.

The gang member was transported to a mental health facility, where he received counseling and therapy to deal with his suicidal behaviors. Post-treatment, he appeared in court for sentencing in a separate offense (an aggravated assault, which in layman's terms means attacking someone with a dangerous weapon).

The judge ordered that the boy serve a sentence in a secure juvenile facility (juvenile prison, basically) because he felt that the boy was a danger to himself and others.

The youth corrections caseworker, whose job was solely to transport the boy to the secure program, took it upon himself to amend the judge's order, and place the gang member in a non-secure group home back in the community.

Within 12 hours, the gang member had fled from the group home, and was at-large. This outcome was not particularly unforeseen by anyone who had worked with this individual, the judge, or the officer involved. Even the mom of the gang member felt he should have been locked up. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but nothing happened for several months.

Then, the gang member turned up. He killed two people and wounded 3 others during a robbery of a little taqueria on the west side of town. The taqueria was your standard immigrant Cinderella story: it was small, but successful, and was owned by a couple of honest, hard-working Mexican immigrants. One of the victims was the owner of the restaurant. Dave was the first officer to respond of the scene of the shooting. The gang member's take out of this robbery amounted to $16. Two people were dead, three people were seriously injured, for sixteen dollars.

Eventually, the taqueria went out of business, and the owner's widow moved back to Mexico. All of the employees, including the ones who had been shot, lost their jobs. Dale ended up going to therapy for about a year to deal with his feelings of guilt for keeping the gang member from committing suicide.

Fucked up, eh?

So tell me: Do you REALLY believe in karma? Because I don't so much, anymore.

There isn't any rhyme or reason to the universe most of the time.
Bad people do bad stuff, and more often than not, don't suffer for their actions. Just as often, horrible tragedies befall good people. Sometimes, life just sucks.

There's a story, Richard. Not all stories have happy endings, unfortunately.

About Me & This Blog 5:09 PM

I'm a 43-year-old woman who has spent the majority of her life working in the field of gangs. The best and worst eight years of my life were when I was providing direct services to gang members in a program and on the street in my late 20s and early 30s.

I realized this year that some of my stories are slipping away and that the details were getting fuzzy. I like these stories, they made me the person I am today, and I didn't want to lose them. So, I decided to write them down here.

I wanted to remember the person I used to be. And, the stories of my kids deserve to be told. I want people to know about their lives.

The basic facts about me are as follows: I'm a divorced mom with two kids, a daughter aged 15, and a son who is 11. I still work in the same field I've worked in for the past 19 years, but now I don't work directly with kids anymore.

I never set out to work with gangs for a living. It just kind of happened.

More about me:

PTSD
Karma


Anyway, these are the stories. Most of them date from 1994 - 1999. In case you wondered, the names & locations have been slightly altered to protect the innocent, and the not-so-innocent.