SOUND OF ONE HAND SLAPPING: I wouldn’t know Michael Orozco if he bit me on the ass. But maybe that’s what he’ll need to do to get the help he needs. Michael, according to his mother, is addicted to methamphetamine; he’s also diagnosed as a schizophrenic. For the past nine years, she’s been chasing after Michael’s comet trail, trying to limit the damage. In that time, he’s been arrested more than 20 times, committed six times to various locked-down psychiatric hospitals, and dispatched to countless sober-living warehouses. He spent six months in state prison, reportedly enticed by the prospect of ice cream and pancakes.
None of this comes cheap. Michael, in the lingo of social service providers, is the Frequent Flyer and the Million-Dollar Manny all wrapped into one. Catch and release might work when it comes to fishing, but it’s done little for Michael, his mom, or the taxpayers. And he’s only gotten worse. In the past year, cops were called to the Smart & Final parking lot where Michael was waving his knife at the voices in his head. Neither the cops nor his knife did much good. Having no place to put Michael, they let him go. He later punched his brother in the jaw. Hard. He threatened his mom when she was talking with his psychiatric caseworkers. More recently, he was arrested for lewd conduct; charges were not pursued.
It’s a boring story. Unless it’s your son.