August 5, 2025 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Deon Joseph has worked in law enforcement for more than two decades, spending much of that time in places where support systems rarely hold. The people he meets are often in crisis, and the job asks more than it once did. He reflects on how expectations have shifted, how officers adapt when there’s nowhere else to send someone, and what it means to keep doing the work when most of the pressure lands on the same few shoulders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Dian Joseph is a law enforcement consultant, author, and active
senior lead officer the downtown Los Angeles skid Row Community.
He's here to share another story with us. Here's Dion.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The one thing that I was never able to really
get a handle on. We were able to reduce crime
forty percent, reduce death thirty three percent, wonderful, wonderful achievements
that we all engaged in, But one thing we couldn't
fix was mental illness. Mental illness will forever be the
challenge of our lifetime in my opinion. As a matter
(00:53):
of fact, I think it's about the third or maybe
half of the homeless problem. If you really, if you're
thinking about realist, we all know that in America, our
solution to quote unquote helping them mentally ill was to
close down the asylums, and then they sued, so nothing
like it, even a better version of it, could ever
come back. So now you kick people out into the
(01:15):
streets in the name of Similarityia, you're free. You sprinkle
pills on them and tell them by okay, come check
on me every two week, Come check in every two weeks.
Never happened. Some of these individuals fell into the loving
arms of family members, loved ones, you know, who tried
to help them. Others, too. Many of the others ended
up in places like skid Row, and when they came
(01:35):
to skied roll, they would throw away their prescribed medication
because it made them feel down, It made them feel lethargic,
and in skid row you got to be ready for everything,
so they threw that away or sell it to make
enough money to buy the hard stuff, the crack, the meth,
the marijuana and all this other stuff. And being mentally
ill is not a crime. I've stated this. Any police
(01:57):
officer you talked to will tell you. Being paranoise gets
to Franik is not a crime. Being bipolar is not
a crime. Being depressed is not a crime. But when
those things meet heroin, crack, methamphetamines, fetanyl spice, and yes,
even marijuana, it could have disastrous consequestions. And that's when
they become a police problem. That's when no mental health
professional was going to approach them. When they're in an
(02:17):
agitated state of delirium, slap boxing with city buses and
they're underwearing, wearing red sox. You know that's not going
to happen no matter what the rhetoric is today, They're
going to call us first, because what do you do
when it's not just paranoia? What do you do when
there's a chemical buffer between you and the crisis? And
that was the issue. So there were so many mentally
(02:40):
ill individuals who lost their lives in Scitroll. Some I
ended up developing relationships with one named Linda. Her nickname
was the Hurricane. She saw me as her little brother
and I was her protector. And you know, I remember
I discovered she wasn't a homeless because her family would
come from Pacoima and pick her up and try to
clean her up. And one day, my wife and I
are driving to a party. This big, ugly van pulls
(03:01):
up next to us and she sticks her head head
out the window, wig flies, all false teeth comes out
through a hits for window. Hey, robo God and the
brother it's me because my wife never believed my story,
but she was a believer that day. And it was Linda.
She had been picked up by her family and they
tried to love her back to health, but she would
often escape because of her addiction dual diagnosis. Okay, another
(03:25):
friend of mine, he was from the LBGTQ community and
he was often bullied because he would wear daisy dukes.
But I like the guy. He was a cool cat.
But of course when he was a high it was
like a doctor jeck O, mister Heinde effect. And I'll
never forget. He was bullied by the gangsters in the
park and they bloodied his lip, and of course he
(03:46):
was too afraid to fight them. So he comes around
the corner and his mental his crisis kicks in and
he wants to fight me. And I said, hey, it's me, Ricky,
it's me. You don't want these kind of problems. Okay,
you don't want these hands, Ricky, So calm down. And
he would try to calm down, and then he walked
away from me and tried to take his aggressions out
on a pregnant woman. And I grabbed him before he
(04:06):
could harmor wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him.
And I thought, for sure, they're going to place this
guy on the hold. For sure, it's going to be
more than seventy two hours. For sure, it's going to
be about two weeks. Nope, he was out in about
six hours if I remember correctly. And a month later
he finally decided to stand up for himself when a
(04:28):
parole started attacking him because of the clothes he was wearing,
and the parole stabbed him in the heart. He was
in the hospital for about six weeks before he finally
passed away. And I always ask these questions to the public,
you know, because they always want to blame us when
things fall apart. Whose fault is it? Was it our
fault or was it the system? It was a system,
(04:50):
because the way the system is set up, the law
enforcement is always going to be the tip of the
spear until we actually changed the mental health system and
bring some common sense mechanisms back in place, like, for instance,
instead of three days seventy two hours, it should be
six weeks. And the reason why is it takes about
four to six weeks for most of their medication for
them to even benefit from the therapeutic attributes of their medication.
(05:12):
That's common sense, So don't release them until that six
weeks is up, so it'll be in a habit of
taking their medication. Also, during that six weeks. You know,
you have to clean them up before you can help them,
because a lot of them do what's called cleaning up.
They'll go to the hospital and six hours later they'll say, hey,
how are you feeling, Oh, I'm fine. Why are they
saying that because they want to go out there and
scratch their chemical itch, right instead, get them clean first.
(05:34):
Once you got them clean, develop a report with them
and find out who their family members and loved ones
are and see if we can get them connected. And
that's streamline the process of conservatorships so that we can
get their family members to help them and just help
them guide them a little better. And even if that
doesn't happen, they'll be in a habit of taking their
medication and they won't fall off the wagon as long.
(05:57):
But until that happens, we're going to continue to see
them countless tragedies that I've seen every day. It's near
and dear to my heart because I have a niece
who's mentally ill, I have a nephew who's touched with
a little mental illness. I watched falster kids who are
really struggling with it, and I even mentor young men
on a spectrum of autism. I think about once or
twice a year when I can, and it's near a
(06:20):
dear to my heart, and I just wish somebody would
listen to this street cop. I don't have a dog
in the fight. I'm not political. I just want to
tell you the truth from a boots on a ground perspective.
I'm not looking at it from thirty thousand feet. I'm
not some college professor who's overly idealistic, who only sees
one way, you know. I just want to tell you
(06:41):
the truth what's happening in the street.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And a terrific job on the editing, producing and story
editing by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks
to Dion Joseph for sharing his story. And we all
know the problems of mental health, and it is indeed
one third to one half of the homeless problem in
this country is mental illness. And we don't have answers.
And if in any way our stories can lead to
(07:04):
those answers, well then we have helped do something good
for all of us, for all of our families, and
for those most harmed, and that's the mentally ill who
aren't properly treated and end up on the streets. Dean
Joseph's story, and in so many ways, the story of
cops across this country who deal with the things that
we don't want to deal with. Here on Our American Stories,
(07:30):
lie h Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to
subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed
or want to hear again can be found there daily again.
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple podcasts,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Dian Joseph is a law enforcement consultant, author, and active
senior lead officer the downtown Los Angeles skid Row Community.
He's here to share another story with us. Here's Dion.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The one thing that I was never able to really
get a handle on. We were able to reduce crime
forty percent, reduce death thirty three percent, wonderful, wonderful achievements
that we all engaged in, But one thing we couldn't
fix was mental illness. Mental illness will forever be the
challenge of our lifetime in my opinion. As a matter
(00:53):
of fact, I think it's about the third or maybe
half of the homeless problem. If you really, if you're
thinking about realist, we all know that in America, our
solution to quote unquote helping them mentally ill was to
close down the asylums, and then they sued, so nothing
like it, even a better version of it, could ever
come back. So now you kick people out into the
(01:15):
streets in the name of Similarityia, you're free. You sprinkle
pills on them and tell them by okay, come check
on me every two week, Come check in every two weeks.
Never happened. Some of these individuals fell into the loving
arms of family members, loved ones, you know, who tried
to help them. Others, too. Many of the others ended
up in places like skid Row, and when they came
(01:35):
to skied roll, they would throw away their prescribed medication
because it made them feel down, It made them feel lethargic,
and in skid row you got to be ready for everything,
so they threw that away or sell it to make
enough money to buy the hard stuff, the crack, the meth,
the marijuana and all this other stuff. And being mentally
ill is not a crime. I've stated this. Any police
(01:57):
officer you talked to will tell you. Being paranoise gets
to Franik is not a crime. Being bipolar is not
a crime. Being depressed is not a crime. But when
those things meet heroin, crack, methamphetamines, fetanyl spice, and yes,
even marijuana, it could have disastrous consequestions. And that's when
they become a police problem. That's when no mental health
professional was going to approach them. When they're in an
(02:17):
agitated state of delirium, slap boxing with city buses and
they're underwearing, wearing red sox. You know that's not going
to happen no matter what the rhetoric is today, They're
going to call us first, because what do you do
when it's not just paranoia? What do you do when
there's a chemical buffer between you and the crisis? And
that was the issue. So there were so many mentally
(02:40):
ill individuals who lost their lives in Scitroll. Some I
ended up developing relationships with one named Linda. Her nickname
was the Hurricane. She saw me as her little brother
and I was her protector. And you know, I remember
I discovered she wasn't a homeless because her family would
come from Pacoima and pick her up and try to
clean her up. And one day, my wife and I
are driving to a party. This big, ugly van pulls
(03:01):
up next to us and she sticks her head head
out the window, wig flies, all false teeth comes out
through a hits for window. Hey, robo God and the
brother it's me because my wife never believed my story,
but she was a believer that day. And it was Linda.
She had been picked up by her family and they
tried to love her back to health, but she would
often escape because of her addiction dual diagnosis. Okay, another
(03:25):
friend of mine, he was from the LBGTQ community and
he was often bullied because he would wear daisy dukes.
But I like the guy. He was a cool cat.
But of course when he was a high it was
like a doctor jeck O, mister Heinde effect. And I'll
never forget. He was bullied by the gangsters in the
park and they bloodied his lip, and of course he
(03:46):
was too afraid to fight them. So he comes around
the corner and his mental his crisis kicks in and
he wants to fight me. And I said, hey, it's me, Ricky,
it's me. You don't want these kind of problems. Okay,
you don't want these hands, Ricky, So calm down. And
he would try to calm down, and then he walked
away from me and tried to take his aggressions out
on a pregnant woman. And I grabbed him before he
(04:06):
could harmor wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him.
And I thought, for sure, they're going to place this
guy on the hold. For sure, it's going to be
more than seventy two hours. For sure, it's going to
be about two weeks. Nope, he was out in about
six hours if I remember correctly. And a month later
he finally decided to stand up for himself when a
(04:28):
parole started attacking him because of the clothes he was wearing,
and the parole stabbed him in the heart. He was
in the hospital for about six weeks before he finally
passed away. And I always ask these questions to the public,
you know, because they always want to blame us when
things fall apart. Whose fault is it? Was it our
fault or was it the system? It was a system,
(04:50):
because the way the system is set up, the law
enforcement is always going to be the tip of the
spear until we actually changed the mental health system and
bring some common sense mechanisms back in place, like, for instance,
instead of three days seventy two hours, it should be
six weeks. And the reason why is it takes about
four to six weeks for most of their medication for
them to even benefit from the therapeutic attributes of their medication.
(05:12):
That's common sense, So don't release them until that six
weeks is up, so it'll be in a habit of
taking their medication. Also, during that six weeks. You know,
you have to clean them up before you can help them,
because a lot of them do what's called cleaning up.
They'll go to the hospital and six hours later they'll say, hey,
how are you feeling, Oh, I'm fine. Why are they
saying that because they want to go out there and
scratch their chemical itch, right instead, get them clean first.
(05:34):
Once you got them clean, develop a report with them
and find out who their family members and loved ones
are and see if we can get them connected. And
that's streamline the process of conservatorships so that we can
get their family members to help them and just help
them guide them a little better. And even if that
doesn't happen, they'll be in a habit of taking their
medication and they won't fall off the wagon as long.
(05:57):
But until that happens, we're going to continue to see
them countless tragedies that I've seen every day. It's near
and dear to my heart because I have a niece
who's mentally ill, I have a nephew who's touched with
a little mental illness. I watched falster kids who are
really struggling with it, and I even mentor young men
on a spectrum of autism. I think about once or
twice a year when I can, and it's near a
(06:20):
dear to my heart, and I just wish somebody would
listen to this street cop. I don't have a dog
in the fight. I'm not political. I just want to
tell you the truth from a boots on a ground perspective.
I'm not looking at it from thirty thousand feet. I'm
not some college professor who's overly idealistic, who only sees
one way, you know. I just want to tell you
(06:41):
the truth what's happening in the street.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And a terrific job on the editing, producing and story
editing by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks
to Dion Joseph for sharing his story. And we all
know the problems of mental health, and it is indeed
one third to one half of the homeless problem in
this country is mental illness. And we don't have answers.
And if in any way our stories can lead to
(07:04):
those answers, well then we have helped do something good
for all of us, for all of our families, and
for those most harmed, and that's the mentally ill who
aren't properly treated and end up on the streets. Dean
Joseph's story, and in so many ways, the story of
cops across this country who deal with the things that
we don't want to deal with. Here on Our American Stories,
(07:30):
lie h Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to
subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed
or want to hear again can be found there daily again.
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple podcasts,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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