It was CRAZY night

Even though Ron is finished with evaluation, he passed by the way, he is still riding with me until he transfers to evening shift for week two of evaluation. We checked by with another unit on a family disturbance. The 14 year old daughter was terrorizing the family with a baseball bat. We arrived and met the other officer inside. The mother gave us a brief summary of the night's events. The daughter, Anya, was calm and in bed at this point. The other officer, Andrew, knocked on and then opened the door to her bedroom. Anya was in bed, but was not asleep. The room was in complete disarray. Clothes were everywhere, which is probably typical for a 14 year old girl's room. One wall was covered with Twilight posters.

Andrew, a young officer that is not known for his bedside manner with suspects, started in on Anya. "What is going on? Why did you swing the bat? Why are you angry? Are you going to say anything?" Anya just sat up and stared at him. Andrew turned and looked at me. He said "what do we do now trainer?" I told him to go talk to the mother. I turned on the light, said hello to Anya, and walked over and sat on the end of her bed. I then engaged her in a civil conversation. Anya and her brother were adopted from an orphanage in Russia about 10 years ago. We talked about school, she is on the flag corp at Lamar High School and loves it. She makes A's and B's and wants to go to Brown after she graduates. She loves to read and is infatuated with Twilight and has read all of the books and seen the movie "at least 100 times". She wants to be an interior designer or a chef. She takes culinary classes at Lamar. She wants an iPod, cell phone, and laptop. I told her that when I was her age I did not have any of those things. She said "did they even have iPods when you were my age?" She guessed that I was 36 years old. She was very articulate, witty, and generally fun to talk to.

However, she has a major issue with anger. Tonight, her brother and his friend started giving her a hard time while they were shopping at Randalls earlier in the evening. They continued to pick on her when they got home. Anya finally went over the edge, grabbed a baseball bat and slammed it into the walls of her brother's room 8 times. She then threatened to pour hydrogen peroxide down the friend's throat. Anya's brother knows that he can get under her skin and eventually send her over the edge. He enjoys getting a reaction out of her. Anya seems more than willing to oblige. We discussed proper ways to express anger. I told her that is she gets in the habit of reacting this way when she gets angry, she will eventually react this way at school. That will get her sent to an alternative school and put a damper on the Brown plans. She said that she was not trying to hit her brother or the friend and only threatened about the peroxide to scare him.

I went outside and made some phone calls. Juvenile division said that she had never been handled by law enforcement. There were not any mental health units available to come talk to Anya. My supervisor advised me to make a report and to leave Anya at home. The mom did not want her arrested or taken from the home. The mom was just scared and looking for some help. I talked to the mom about possible ways to motivate Anya to go see a psychologist. So far, Anya had refused to go. The mom thanked us for our help and we left. Later in the shift, Ron and the other officers that were on that scene told me how impressed they were that I was able to quickly develop a rapport with Anya. What can I say, it is easy for me to talk to 14 year old girls. That did not come out right, it is easy for me talk to people, at work at least.

We also responded to a person down in a vehicle call. A lady, Donna, went out to Howl at the Moon, a piano bar, for happy hour with co-workers. She said they kept bringing her free drinks. Cool. She started to feel bad and said that she had to leave. She made it to her vehicle and had the good sense to realize that she should not drive. She started to feel worse, opened her door and got sick. She then passed out in her vehicle. We gave her the option of taking a cab home or going to jail. She refused a cab and belligerently said "don't you have better things to do, like fight real crime?" That attitude always earns you a trip to jail. At the jail, she told the jail "doctor" that if given the opportunity, she would harm herself. Fabulous. So, we loaded her back up and took her to the Neuropsychiatric Center (NPC) at Ben Taub. At NPC, she was even more belligerent with the real doctor. She cussed him and called him stupid among other things. I filled out the emergency detention order and left her in their care. She was in their system, was being treated for depression, and had a history of seizures. It turned out that NPC was a better place for her to be than jail. Even though we were not training, Ron learned a lot tonight.