I had to deal with pimps looking for runaway girls needed
for their stables. Pick pockets, purse-snatchers, baggage thieves, drug addicts
and sex-perverts all loved bus and train stations.
Dealing with this culture took a lot of tough love. Yes, I had some epic and unforgettable
battles that sent lots business to the local emergency rooms and the old 001 police lockup at 1121 South State street.
There were times I’d encounter people in real need and
helping them was often a challenge. I sent
many people to area shelters and places where they could score a free
meal. I’d find vulnerable and desperate
runaway girls in need of social services. I gave the Salvation Army
hundreds of customers over the years.
One day in about 1971, I came into the depot and saw that officers
were dealing with a man found removing a brown paper bag containing his life
savings, $70,000.00 from a rental storage
locker.
The man was on a layover from
New York to Los Angeles, CA to take a new job as an aircraft machinist.
A concerned woman saw his cash bag and called the police. They arrived and the man was very livid and
demanded to be left alone. He said he put the bag in a locker because he wanted to walk around and see some local sights.
A sergeant
decided that the man should be sent to the Reed Zone Center to get his clock
rewound. In simple English that simply
meant taking him to a mental facility for emergency care and observation.
The fun began! These
mental health referrals always bring lawyers appointed as guardians, court dates and
of course mental health evaluations. The
man’s cash was inventoried and placed into the police evidence and recovered property
section.
The court determined that the man was not indigent so his
treatment costs, temporary legal guardian should not burden the taxpayers. What should have been a three-day
event lasted three weeks. A judge
ordered that the man’s money be released to the guardian for proper
distribution and safekeeping.
Finally the man was found to be sane and perfectly able to
care for himself and was released. The poor
man came back to Trailways in tears and I had a chat with him.
The hapless man told me he now needed a ticket to return
to New York because the new job he’d found in California had been filled by someone else. He showed me a check made out to him by his
guardian for $2,800.00. He said that
they used nearly all of his money for the “services” that they provided him over his
three weeks in Hell.
The poor fellow needed help because no bank would cash the
check from the legal guardian. He now
had no cash to buy a bus ticket. I sent
him off to the Salvation Army for help.
I never saw him again.
This was just one more example of just how helpful a
Progressive Nanny Government can be.
Like the old 1950’s TV Show, Naked City’s narrator would
say, “There are Eight million stories in the Naked City and this has been one
of them”.
