Quitting to prevent death

 My wife was speaking to me about all the people who quit their jobs rather than push women and children migrants back into the Rio Grande River in Texas and it made me think of how I had to quit a job to save lives (a young man and my own in early 1990s).

I was counseling juvenile offenders who were 12 to 17 in San Jose then and I was also going through a very difficult divorce which also made me a little self destructive at the time which also is one reason why I took this job to begin with.

Because I was in my 40s then it was a good fit as I was a father and had been since 1974 so these boys 12 to 17 looked up to me as an uncle, a father, a grandfather or a mentor in many ways. So, because I wasn't a peer they were not going to kill me (sort of).

However, one day I had to take 7 knife like instruments from a 15 year old boy who kept threatening me and others with these knife like objects. Finally, he got a hold of a butcher knife from the kitchen and came up behind me and pressed this butcher knife towards my back and laughed. Because I was raised in the 1950s guns don't scare me but knives do because I once had a knife (on two occassions from different older boys) put a knife to my throat and tell me they were going to cut my head off. So, because of this I don't get scared by guns but knives are somewhat terrifying to me because of my personal experiences in the 1950s.

So, when he put this butcher knife to my back I was ready to kill that boy reflexively from my past experience with knives.

So, I quickly disarmed him and threw him to the ground and realized I was going to kill him and realized this job wasn't worth my death or this 15 year old boy's death.

I resigned my job that day because I'm not a policeman I'm a counselor of Juvenile offenders. As a result both I and this boy survived that day. However, he broke the handle off a broom and attacked the next counselor and that counselor called the police which got that counselor fired.

However, I quit at exactly the right time because two counselors were killed by the juvenile offenders within 6 months  which ended that counseling program for boys 12 to 17 with 7 non-gun related felonies.

So, quitting my job saved my life and that boy's life but I couldn't save the lives of other counselors who died doing their job in that same program in San Jose, California then in the early 1990s.

The whole point of this program was to try to salvage some of the boys who had 7 non-gun related felonies. In California if you are convicted of a gun related felony even if you are 12 years old your life might be over so to speak because you then go into the CYA "California Youth Authority" where bad things might happen to you from other boys with gun related felonies in that program.

So, the whole point was to try to save the lives of the boys we worked with from a permanent life of crime. The easiest ones to save from a life of crime were the 12 to 15 year olds. The hardest ones to save were the 15 to 17 year olds.

However, this also is a paradox because boys committed to a life of crime already are used to a pecking order in their lives sort of like soldiers. There is a saying "Honor among thieves" which is true from this point of view.

So, often we were left with the crazier 12 to 15 year olds who might somehow be saved from a life of crime and then often the over 15 year olds were programmed already into a life of crime but caused us no problems really because they were already committed to a life of crime and sort of had their own "armies" of crime that they were a part of.

I think the most important thing I learned from this job is that it is VERY important to show respect for all people whether you believe they deserve that respect or not. Because criminals if you don't show them respect might kill you on the spot otherwise. This is the primary thing I learned about the criminal mind even in 12 to 17 year old boys.

So, showing respect to all beings whether you believe they deserve this respect or not might save your own life or the life of your own family one day.