A tragedy in waiting, while the kid sends out all kinds of SOS signals.
http://www.herald.com/content/today/docs/074496.htm
Mom fires back at school's selection of reading material
She thinks gun magazine inappropriate for her troubled son
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@herald.com
Suzanne Palm's son has been hospitalized three times in the last six months for psychiatric problems -- once after he attacked his older brother with a knife.
``I have an anger problem,'' the 13-year-old Davie boy admits. ``Any little thing gets to me, and I blow up.''
So imagine his mother's surprise last month when the youth returned home from Driftwood Middle School carrying three issues of American Rifleman magazine -- each one stamped by the school's media center to be checked out by students.
``It floored me,'' said Suzanne Palm, whose last name is different from her son's. `If you only knew how angry I was.''
``People did not believe me until they saw the magazine. They were shocked that something like this could happen in the school system.''
For Palm, the gun magazines represent perhaps the most poignant and memorable episode in her painful yearlong quest to obtain help for her son, who has struggled for many years to control urges to kill himself and others. The boy says he hears voices. He shoplifts and gets into fights at school.
Palm insists it was no secret at Driftwood Middle that her son was potentially violent. Teachers, the principal and the boy's guidance counselor all were aware of the boy's problems, she said. Officials called police on the boy twice, both times resulting in psychiatric hospitalizations.
The school district's spokesman, Joe Donzelli, declined to discuss the magazines, saying he needed to look into Palm's allegations. ``I don't know if that's true,'' Donzelli said. ``Nor am I an authority on what materials should, or should not, be provided at the media center of a middle school.''
Palm turned to Sheriff Ken Jenne for help.
``Why are there no programs I can get my son into before he commits a crime?'' Palm wrote in a June 22 e-mail to Jenne. ``I have called several dozen places trying to get help . . . I am at my wit's end with him.''
The youth, who says he too would like to get help, may not be unusual. Florida's juvenile justice and child welfare systems are under increased scrutiny in recent weeks following the near-death of a 15-year-old boy who was found hanging from a bunk bed at an unlicensed runaway shelter in Oakland Park on June 12.
Anthony Dumas, who remains in a coma, was allowed to remain hanging from his black leather belt for several minutes until police arrived to cut him down. The incident is under investigation by the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the state attorney's office.
Suzanne Palm read Dumas' story in The Herald, and felt like she was looking in the mirror. ``I got the chills,'' Palm said, when she read Walter Dumas and Shirley Finley's account of their inability to get counseling for their son, who was defiant and rebellious.
Palm says she was turned away from one program after another until she finally gave up. One publicly funded program said it was designed only for runaways, not kids who were violent. Another program turned her away because she could not afford the $600-per-month fee.
A youth counselor at the Sheriff's Office did try to help, she said. Unfortunately, Palm was told her son could only get counseling after he was brought ``in the system'' -- the same advice Dumas' parents were given. She tried -- but Davie police had the boy civilly committed for psychiatric treatment instead.
``When he acted out at home, I had to call the police on him, on my own son,'' Palm said she was told. ``That was the only way to get him in the system.''
Kirk Englehardt, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said he could not discuss Palm's situation Friday because he didn't have enough time to look into the case.
``It has gotten to the point where, at 13, I cannot leave him alone for a minute because I am afraid of what he will do,'' Palm said. ``My husband works nights, and I don't even take a shower until he comes home because I am afraid of what will happen.''
Palm has placed all knives in the house out of the boy's reach. No guns are allowed.
So Palm was particularly distressed to find her son carrying magazines with ads for guns, knives, ammunition clips -- and even an instructional guide entitled ``How to Be Your Own Gunsmith.''
The November 1999 issue the boy checked out contained an article entitled ``Making the Snub-Nose Roar.'' The article compared different types of revolvers, and detailed how ``a new generation of snubs speaks with authority.''
Driftwood Middle's principal, Frank Campana, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald.
http://www.herald.com/content/today/docs/074496.htm
Mom fires back at school's selection of reading material
She thinks gun magazine inappropriate for her troubled son
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@herald.com
Suzanne Palm's son has been hospitalized three times in the last six months for psychiatric problems -- once after he attacked his older brother with a knife.
``I have an anger problem,'' the 13-year-old Davie boy admits. ``Any little thing gets to me, and I blow up.''
So imagine his mother's surprise last month when the youth returned home from Driftwood Middle School carrying three issues of American Rifleman magazine -- each one stamped by the school's media center to be checked out by students.
``It floored me,'' said Suzanne Palm, whose last name is different from her son's. `If you only knew how angry I was.''
``People did not believe me until they saw the magazine. They were shocked that something like this could happen in the school system.''
For Palm, the gun magazines represent perhaps the most poignant and memorable episode in her painful yearlong quest to obtain help for her son, who has struggled for many years to control urges to kill himself and others. The boy says he hears voices. He shoplifts and gets into fights at school.
Palm insists it was no secret at Driftwood Middle that her son was potentially violent. Teachers, the principal and the boy's guidance counselor all were aware of the boy's problems, she said. Officials called police on the boy twice, both times resulting in psychiatric hospitalizations.
The school district's spokesman, Joe Donzelli, declined to discuss the magazines, saying he needed to look into Palm's allegations. ``I don't know if that's true,'' Donzelli said. ``Nor am I an authority on what materials should, or should not, be provided at the media center of a middle school.''
Palm turned to Sheriff Ken Jenne for help.
``Why are there no programs I can get my son into before he commits a crime?'' Palm wrote in a June 22 e-mail to Jenne. ``I have called several dozen places trying to get help . . . I am at my wit's end with him.''
The youth, who says he too would like to get help, may not be unusual. Florida's juvenile justice and child welfare systems are under increased scrutiny in recent weeks following the near-death of a 15-year-old boy who was found hanging from a bunk bed at an unlicensed runaway shelter in Oakland Park on June 12.
Anthony Dumas, who remains in a coma, was allowed to remain hanging from his black leather belt for several minutes until police arrived to cut him down. The incident is under investigation by the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the state attorney's office.
Suzanne Palm read Dumas' story in The Herald, and felt like she was looking in the mirror. ``I got the chills,'' Palm said, when she read Walter Dumas and Shirley Finley's account of their inability to get counseling for their son, who was defiant and rebellious.
Palm says she was turned away from one program after another until she finally gave up. One publicly funded program said it was designed only for runaways, not kids who were violent. Another program turned her away because she could not afford the $600-per-month fee.
A youth counselor at the Sheriff's Office did try to help, she said. Unfortunately, Palm was told her son could only get counseling after he was brought ``in the system'' -- the same advice Dumas' parents were given. She tried -- but Davie police had the boy civilly committed for psychiatric treatment instead.
``When he acted out at home, I had to call the police on him, on my own son,'' Palm said she was told. ``That was the only way to get him in the system.''
Kirk Englehardt, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said he could not discuss Palm's situation Friday because he didn't have enough time to look into the case.
``It has gotten to the point where, at 13, I cannot leave him alone for a minute because I am afraid of what he will do,'' Palm said. ``My husband works nights, and I don't even take a shower until he comes home because I am afraid of what will happen.''
Palm has placed all knives in the house out of the boy's reach. No guns are allowed.
So Palm was particularly distressed to find her son carrying magazines with ads for guns, knives, ammunition clips -- and even an instructional guide entitled ``How to Be Your Own Gunsmith.''
The November 1999 issue the boy checked out contained an article entitled ``Making the Snub-Nose Roar.'' The article compared different types of revolvers, and detailed how ``a new generation of snubs speaks with authority.''
Driftwood Middle's principal, Frank Campana, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald.
