WASHINGTON — When a D.C. mother saw NEST camera footage of her teenager allegedly burglarizing his own home back in December, smashing her locked window with a brick, it was the last straw for her.
The woman, who WUSA9 is not identifying as her son is a minor, is now taking the extreme measure of speaking to the media, begging for court intervention, as she feels it's her last option to save her son.
Sitting in the family’s home, the mother showed off smiling photos of her son, when he was still a little boy, still himself.
“That is the son that I know, and remember...” the mother said, her voice trailing off as she began to cry.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to compose herself. "I'm not sure what's happened or what's changed since then. I feel like it's definitely deeper rooted.”
The mom said as her son has drifted in the wrong direction, hanging out in the wrong crowds, she has tried everything she can think of to get him help.
“Excessively at this point,” she said. “Even at home just trying to work with him one on one, going through therapy courts, trying to get assistance anyway that I can.”
She even considered boarding school at one point, just to get her son away from the city.
This mother shared the details of her son’s case through two court ordered psychiatric and psychoeducational evaluations, in addition to emails she wrote to Judge Andrea Hertzfeld, the DC Office of the Attorney General, and her son's court appointed attorney. She said she was providing it all to WUSA9, including the NEST camera video of the home break-in, and deciding to speak publicly as a desperate plea for help.
“I guess, coming from kind of feeling backed in a corner or against the wall,” she said. “Not really having the support that I've been seeking, asking for, crying out for at this point.”
Her son’s criminal behavior began when he was charged with simple assault and robbery for an incident at a DC Metro station last June. Since then, the teen has had at least eight different custody orders for violating the terms of his release. He has repeatedly run away from home or the Youth Shelter House, which is a monitored group home for teens awaiting trial. As a teen with a first offense only, he was rarely held at Youth Services Center, a locked down facility for juvenile offenders.
“That’s been the dynamic from June to date,” she said. “Literally every month, every time.”
On Nov. 28, 2023, a recommendation from the second of those two evaluations was delivered to the court. It diagnosed the teen with Disrputive Mood Dysregulation Disorder and said, “due to [the teen's] lack of responsiveness to less restrictive environments...it is recommended that he be placed in a Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility with a strong behavioral and trauma focus.”
But those reports are typically not considered by the judge until sentencing. So, when the teen had a custody order hearing that same day, the report was not part of Judge Hertzfeld’s decision, and she once again sent the teen back to Youth Shelter House. He ran away 12 days later.
It was three days after that the mom said her son broke into the family’s home, once again, breaking her heart, and his 10-year-old brother's heart, too.
“It's been hard. He's had trouble sleeping. He gets really sad at times,” the mother said of her younger son. “There's times where he even blamed himself for his brother not being here ... It's been really hard on him.”
The young boy now creates computer likenesses of his big brother because he misses him.
The teen was arrested again Jan. 1, this time by Arlington Police for stealing a jacket with a wallet in the pocket right off another teenager’s back at Pentagon City food court. The mom said Arlington Police held her son, who had just turned 15, for about 30 days. He was then transferred back to the DC Juvenile Justice System and is now once again at Youth Services Center.
His mom hopes the judge will finally send him for the Psychiatric Residential Treatment recommended to the court in November.
“Honestly, one of my biggest fears is either getting a phone call that something's happened to him, or him getting in trouble for something where there's no turning back from,” she said.
She said if someone doesn’t help her son, the course of his life could be changed forever.
A DC Superior Court spokesperson and a spokesperson for the DC Office of the Attorney General said they were prohibited from commenting on this case because it involved a minor.
WUSA9 has been given special clearance to attend and report on the teen's next hearing. The teen’s attorney, Philip Skillman, declined to comment.
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