The Silent Witnesses: Children in the Chasm of Addiction

Every week, I, Harriet West-Moore, invite you into the raw and often unseen world of those who safeguard our communities. This episode of Women in Public Safety podcast is no exception, as we unfold a chilling tale from a colleague's case file on the devastating reality of drug addiction. The narrative takes us through the turbulent journey of a parolee enslaved by heroin and fentanyl, a path riddled with despair that doesn't just consume him, but also those he calls family, including vulnerable children who witness the chaos.

As your guide through these harrowing stories, I stand with fellow parole officers who brave the trenches of broken homes and lives in their mission to restore order. This week's gripping Case Chronicle confronts us with the dark intersections of addiction, family dynamics, and the drug trade. Join us as my colleague recounts a surprise search with shocking discoveries, and how they navigate the complexities of addiction, demonstrating the resilience required in our relentless pursuit for justice. Witness the courage, the struggle, and the unyielding commitment to change on the Women in Public Safety podcast.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome to Women in Public Safety podcast, where real life beats raw truth. I'm your host, harriet Westmore. I'm a state parole officer dedicated to unraveling human complexities through true life cases, what we will call Case Chronicles. Join me weekly as we explore gripping narratives from the front lines of law enforcement and social services. From triumph to despair, we will uncover human resilience, vulnerability and, lastly, of course, justice. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes and to join in the movement for change. Hey everybody, this is Harriette Westmore for Women in Public Safety Podcast. This is the podcast where we discuss challenges and triumphs for women who work in public safety, which is law enforcement, corrections, human and health services, medical health care and anybody who serve the public. All right, I'm your host, harriet Westmore, and I want to thank you for joining me and I want you to hit that like, share and subscribe button if you are watching by YouTube.

Speaker 1: 1:21

And today I'm going to discuss a case chronicle. This is case chronicle number two for the month of April, and I wanted to discuss something similar to what I've discussed before was pertaining to offenders and what we as first responders have to deal with, and that is drug addiction. But I wanted to tell a particular truth, case study on an offender, on one of my colleagues, and I want to give shout out to my colleague who, you know, was gracious enough to allow me to share her experience with this particular offender. Experienced with this particular offender. This is kind of going in relations to when you are an addict and that everything around you pretty much go haywire. You don't care about everything else but just chasing that high, that addiction. So I'm going to talk about this particular individual who was on my partner's caseload. He was a stone cold addict. I think his drug of choice was heroin with fentanyl and, as we know, fentanyl is one of the deadliest, if not the deadliest drug. You know that's out there today that we are all dealing with.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Well, this particular offender got out of prison for drug and he was released to his parents' house. Now, by the way, his parents had lost another son to a drug overdose, so they were trying to do their best with. Whatever parents would do is try to help their child to overcome and to get past this addiction. Well, it got so bad to where he went right back to shooting heroin and then he started lacing it with fentanyl and you know, it got so bad to where parents couldn't do anything else with him. They couldn't. They did all the all what they could to help him and he just didn't want to get help and they got out of the house. Well, ended up with a girlfriend who was also an addict, which is very, very typical.

Speaker 1: 3:44

If you are an addict, you kind of you know attach yourself to people who are doing the same thing. You are Not always, but in some form or fashion. You know that sometimes is most of the time is the case, not always, but a lot of times. He decided to move in with her, his girlfriend. The girlfriend had two girls, young girls, they were school age and the house itself because they were both addicts.

Speaker 1: 4:14

The house, the environment was atrocious and that's probably putting it lightly. Anytime that the parole officer would go to make a home visit it was like going into like a mind of filth filth as in feces because they had a pet, that dog. All crap all over the place, dishes was in the sink for god knows how many days, food everywhere there was clothes piled up all the way up to the ceiling and you can't tell which was clean or not. And these young girls had to live in this filth. So of course you know there's a suspect that, uh, he was not complying with the terms of his condition of going through the substance abuse programming or or anything. I mean you know they did all day in and day night was just get high and these kids were in the mix of all this. So the PO and other colleagues, they had a suspicion that they were doing more than just using, they were also dealing. So they did a surprise search, came to the house and searched and what they found? Bags of needles, just drugs, I think it was meth, that was a part of it. They found in, you know, heroin and everything.

Speaker 1: 5:41

So obviously both the female she wasn't on probation or anything at that time but she was arrested along with my colleague Fender and you know, of course Children's Service got involved and removed the children from the home. They called a relative I believe it was the children's grandmother, maternal grandmother. The maternal grandmother came and got the girls. The mom had to go to court and of course the po was supposed to be called to testify. But it was so bad to where caseworker, the social worker from children's services, called the po and said there's no point. You know you don't have to come. I mean, there's there's enough evidence. You don't even have to come and testify if there's enough evidence to convict her. So not only was she convicted, she had her children taken away, which is, again, it's not unusual.

Speaker 1: 6:36

When you live that type of lifestyle, you put everything aside of being a mother Especially I'm talking from a female standpoint you put your children at risk and you put your kids aside in order to get high and indulge in drugs. Well, the mother was like I said. Her kids were permanently taken away from her and she called PO and was very upset with the PO Pretty much cussing the PO out for having her kids taken away, which goes back to the PO Pretty much cussing the PO out for having her kids taken away, which goes back to the illogic the illogic of you know you're blaming a PO for something that you caused. It goes back to the distorted mindset of when you are on drugs that it's everybody else's fault. Instead of you taking accountability, you have your children taken away because of the life and the environment that you created for those girls, and not to mention the dangerous situation it could have been. It's already bad enough that you have them live in filth. They weren't taken care of as far as basic needs of food and proper clothing, but you have the nerve to be mad at law enforcement or social service agency because you failed as a mother. This is the type of stories and this is the type of things that we, as first responders whether it's law enforcement, healthcare providers, social workers, human services agencies that we deal with all the time. So whatever happened to them, we don't know.

Speaker 1: 8:19

The PO was transferred to another area Offender that she was supervising. He went back to prison. But from her telling me this, she said that was one of the worst case of uh neglect and um drug addiction that she had encountered over her career. And you know, quite frankly, she wouldn't be surprised if he'd end up being dead just like his older brother. So you have a parents that hopefully that's not the case, but if it did happen it wouldn't have been a surprise. So it's one of those things that we encounter on a daily basis and you know, I guess the case in point is won't receive the help that you need until you want the help.

Speaker 1: 9:09

He did time in prison and came right back out and went right back into the routine of what got him into prison in the first place, to prison in the first place, and not only that, that, he didn't change his surroundings of people, places and things, which is very important if you're trying to stay sober and clean. And then, as a woman just on the female side, you're a mother, but your main focus, because you're so addicted to this, you know a substance to where you neglect your children and your children has to suffer. But you know, one of the main things is not taking accountability of what you're actually when you do particularly hit rock bottom, which, in her case, you know, she lost her kids. So I I think what I understand. I think that the father of the kids had gotten custody of them. So you know, we can only hope that the girls lived a better life, that things were better for them. I would hate, you know hate for it to be. You know they went from bad to worse or the same. Everything turned out better for them.

Speaker 1: 10:29

This is one of the type of drug cases and drug addiction that we go through, that we have to endure as first responders. People live in filth just to get that. They don't care about that. All they care about is chasing that next high and getting that next fix. It is a sad situation. I'm sure plenty of you out here know or have experience or have family members, unfortunately, that are going through that, but that is today's case chronicles. Again, if you have any stories, I would love your feedback or put it in the chat. If you have a story or a case study that you would like to talk about, please you can reach me at publicsafetybywomen at gmailcom and let me know your story and I want to hear your feedback and what you had to. What's your particular standout story that stuck with you in your career? All right, that's it. I want everybody to be safe and please keep looking ahead instead of looking backwards. All right, I will talk with you next time.