One Cop's Take on Mental Illness, Homelessness, and Crime

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So follow the seven right now. This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories the show where America is the star and the American people. Deon Joseph is a law enforcement consultant, author and active senior lead officer in the downtown Los Angeles Skid Row community. He's here to share another story with us.

Here's Deon. The one thing that I was never able to really get a handle on we were able to reduce crime 40% reduce death 33%. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful achievements that we that we all engaged in. But one thing we couldn't fix was mental illness. Mental illness was will forever be the challenge of our lifetime in my opinion. As a matter of fact, I think it's about the third or maybe a half of the homeless problem if you really if you're thinking about it realistically. We all know that in America our solution to quote unquote helping the mentally ill was to close down the asylums and then they sued so nothing like it even a better version of it could ever come back.

So now you kick people out into the streets in the name of civil liberties you're free. You sprinkle pills on them and tell them bye okay come check on me every two weeks come check in every two weeks never happened. Some of these individuals fell into the loving arms of family members loved ones you know who tried to help them. Others too many of the others ended up in places like Skid Row and when they came to Skid Row they would throw away their prescribed medication because it made them feel down it made them feel lethargic and in Skid Row you got to be ready for everything. So they throw that away or sell it to make enough money to buy the hard stuff the crack the meth the marijuana and all this other stuff and being mentally ill is not a crime. I've stated this any police officer you talk to will tell you being paranoid schizophrenic is not a crime being bipolar is not a crime being depressed is not a crime but when those things meet heroin crack methamphetamines fentanyl spice and yes even marijuana it could have disastrous consequences and that's when they become a police problem that's when no mental health professional is going to approach them when they're in an agitated state of delirium slapboxing with city buses in their underwear and wearing red socks you know that's not going to happen no matter what the rhetoric is today they're going to call us first because what do you do when it's not just paranoia what do you do when there's a chemical buffer between you and the crisis and that was the issue so there are so many mentally ill individuals who lost their lives in Skid Row some I ended up developing relationships with one named Linda her nickname was the hurricane she saw me as her little brother and I was her protector and you know I remember I discovered she wasn't homeless because her family would come from Pacoima and pick her up and try to clean her up and one day my wife and I are driving to a party and this big ugly van pulls up next to us and she sticks her head up head out the window wig flies off false teeth comes out drool hits the window hey Robocop hey big brother it's me because my wife never believed my story but she was a believer that day and it was Linda she had been picked up by her family and they tried to love her back to health but she would often escape because of her addiction dual diagnosis okay another friend of mine he was from the LBGTQ community and he was often bullied because he would wear daisy dukes but I like the guy he was a cool cat but of course when he was a high he was a it was like a Dr. Jekyll Mr. Heinefekt and I'll never forget he was bullied by the gangsters in the park and they bloodied his lip and of course he was too afraid to fight them so he comes around the corner and his mental his crisis kicks in and he wants to fight me and I said hey it's me Ricky it's me you don't want these kind of problems okay you don't want these hands Rick so calm down and he would try to calm down and then he walked away from me and tried to take his aggressions out on a pregnant woman and I grabbed him before he could harm her wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him I thought for sure they're gonna place this guy on the hold for sure it's gonna be more than 72 hours for sure it's gonna be about two weeks nope he was out in about six hours if I remember correctly and a month later he finally decided to stand up for himself when a parolee started attacking him because of the clothes he was wearing and the parolee stabbed him in the heart he was in a hospital for about six weeks before he finally passed away and I always ask these questions to the public you know because they always want to blame us when things fall apart whose fault is it was it our fault or was it the system it was a system because the way the system is set up the law enforcement is always going to be the tip of the spear until we actually change the mental health system and bring some common sense mechanisms back in place like for instance instead of three days 72 hours it should be six weeks and the reason why is it takes about four to six weeks for most of their medication for them to even benefit from the therapeutic attributes of their medication that's common sense so don't release them until that six weeks is up so they'll be in a habit of taking their medication also during that six weeks you know you have to clean them up before you can help them because a lot of them do what's called cleaning up they'll go to the hospital six hours later they'll say hey how are you feeling oh I'm fine why are they saying that because they want to go out there and scratch their chemical itch right instead get them clean first once you got them clean develop a rapport with them and find out who their family members and loved ones are and see if we can get them connected and that's streamlined the process of conservatorships so that we can get their family members to help them and just help them guide them a little better and even if that doesn't happen they'll be in a habit of taking their medication and they won't fall off the wagon as long but until that happens we're going to continue see the countless tragedies that I've seen every day it's near and dear to my heart because I have a niece who's mentally ill I have a nephew who's touched with a little mental illness I watched foster kids who were really struggling with it and I even mentor young men on the spectrum of autism I think about once or twice a year when I can and it's near and dear to my heart and I just wish somebody would listen to this street cop I don't have a dog in the fight I'm not political I just want to tell you the truth from a boots on the ground perspective I'm not looking at it from 30,000 feet I'm not some college professor who's overly idealistic who only sees one way you know I just want to tell you the truth of what's happening in the street and a terrific job on the editing producing and story editing by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Dion Joseph for sharing his story and we all know the problems of mental health and it is indeed one third to one half of the homeless problem in this country is mental illness and we don't have answers and if in any way our stories can lead to those answers well then we have helped do something good for all of us for all of our families and for those most harmed and that's the mentally ill who aren't properly treated and end up on the streets Dion Joseph's story in so many ways the story of cops across this country who deal with the things that we don't want to deal with here on Our American Stories Lee Habib here the host of Our American Stories every day on this show we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country stories from our big cities and small towns but we truly can't do the show without you our stories are free to listen to but they're not free to make if you love what you hear go to our american stories dot com and click the donate button give a little give a lot go to our american stories dot com and give sound is personal intimate and emotive just like this podcast we are audio stack dot ai we combine ai writing the best synthetic voices like ours with production like music and mastering and deliver them to be heard be it ads podcasts or vos for video just like this ad you're listening to right now however we have millions of spots just like this on podcasts and rather than hearing from us we want to hear from you how would you like to win an ai audio campaign for free do you work with businesses products events or causes that could benefit from free promotion on podcasts in the coming month tell us how you might use synthetic voices or dynamically change ads for a society and culture podcast like this versus science music or even comedy go to audio stack dot ai forward slash contest and your company could be heard by millions see web page for teas and seas i'm catia adler host of the global story over the last 25 years i've covered conflicts in the middle east political and economic crises in europe drug cartels in mexico now i'm covering the stories behind the news all over the world in conversation with those who break it join me monday to friday to find out what's happening why and what it all means follow the global story from the bbc wherever you listen to podcasts hey it's paris hilton check out my new single i'm free featuring rino sawayama the song can change your life and that's what free by alternate did for me my first single from my new album infinite icon is a reimagined version of the iconic song listen to i'm free on iheart radio or wherever you stream music and visit infinite icon.com to pre-save my 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