After many years in LE, I have seen some of the worst kids come from the best homes and some of the best kids come from the worst homes. Of course you never know what goes on behind closed doors. A well to do family that seems to want for nothing may be hiding behind a secret of drug use or mental health issues. Or there are those few kids that are just bad; attention seekers, psychopaths. Then you have the run down house with the broken down car in the yard. Inside it’s neat and clean, housing the most loving family, not seeming to have much but each other. Their kids go to school every day with clean clothes, (even if they are hand-me-downs), and clean faces.
I have never forgotten participating in a raid at a drug house. The place was filthy, people passed out on the floor, drugs and drug paraphernalia everywhere in full view, disgusting bathrooms and bedding that hadn’t been washed in months.
I came around the corner into a kitchen that was piled with dirty dishes, half eaten containers of fast food, a nearly empty fridge, and a kitchen table covered with remnants of past meals that lay spoiling and many empty beer and liquor bottles. The table had been cleared in one small area. There sat an eleven year old boy, school books piled in front of him, oblivious to his awful surroundings, patiently working on his arithmetic homework. The scene stopped me cold. What on earth gave this child the tenacity and inner strength to look ahead and see his way out of the hell he lived in? I’ve thought of him often over the years. I wonder how he made out in life.