Darius McCollum Could Finally Get The Help He Needs...

[Orion VII 4 Life]

Jailed Often Because of His Transit Obsession, Man May Get Help

 

Over his three-decade career as New York City’s most notorious transit enthusiast, Darius McCollum has become an urban folk hero to some for his habit of posing as a friendly transit worker, driving buses that do not belong to him and taking city subways for joy rides. He has inspired a play. Someone is filming him for a new documentary.

 

Yet several people who had been close to him said they gave up on him after repeatedly watching him leave jobs and therapy programs, always ending up behind bars again.

Now Mr. McCollum, 48, who has Asperger syndrome, may have another chance at help, if he wants it.

On Wednesday, when Mr. McCollum was supposed to be sentenced in Queens Criminal Court for stealing yet another bus, his lawyer said he was likely to be paroled and sent to a residential treatment program with a long-term, detailed therapy plan.

It is the first time such a structured approach has been tried, said the lawyer, Sally Butler, who noted that participation in the program would be a condition of parole.

“Everybody’s worked hard,” Ms. Butler said in an interview. “We’re trying to put together a solution that will keep him from doing it again. It’s a health issue. He needs to get moved to another place in life.”

Mr. McCollum has been at Rikers Island for nearly three years — his 20th stay in a city jail — and because his sentencing was postponed on Wednesday until August, he will be there at least another month.

The recommended sentence is two and a half to five years, the Queens district attorney’s office said. But given the time Mr. McCollum has already served, he could come before the parole board not long after his sentencing. Then it would be up to the parole board to recommend his next step.

Ms. Butler said she hoped it would be the treatment program that she, a forensic consultant and prosecutors have collaborated on. The program is intended to address not only his disorder, but also what the consultant, Reynaldo Cusicanqui, said was anxiety and depression stemming from when he was stabbed as a 12-year-old.

Mr. McCollum has baffled city authorities and courts since he was first arrested in 1981, at the age of 15, after persuading a subway driver to let him take the wheel of an E train and drive it to the World Trade Center.

Since then, he has racked up around 30 arrests across the city — for generally harmless crimes, but crimes nevertheless. He has spent more than a third of his 48 years in city jails or state prisons, often leaving only to violate his parole and be returned.

Trains and buses have held a deep fascination for him since he was young, his mother, Elizabeth McCollum, said on Wednesday. She was skeptical that he could be helped, given his long history of abandoning stable situations for New York’s rail yards and bus depots. She said she had stopped paying his legal bills after he left both her and his father in North Carolina several years ago at a time when they were both sick.

Around the same time, Mr. McCollum gave up a job that Lori Shery, the president of the Asperger Syndrome Education Network in New Jersey, had found for him at a train museum. Ms. Shery said on Wednesday that she decided then that she could do no more for him.

“That really was a big issue, whether he’s motivated enough to change,” she said, adding that he had told her he did not mind being in jail. “I’m hoping, at some point, the jail thing is going to wear thin with him.”

His latest foray into the justice system began the morning of Aug. 31, 2010, when Mr. McCollum was pulled over driving a Trailways bus in Jamaica, Queens. He had taken it from a bus depot in Hoboken, N.J. On July 1, 2013, he pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal possession of stolen property.

It was a familiar scenario, reminiscent of the many times his supporters say he has been failed by an inflexible legal system. But Ms. Butler and Ms. Shery said things could be different this time around.

For one thing, according to Ms. Butler, the district attorney’s office and the parole board now accept that Mr. McCollum has Asperger syndrome, with the obsessive fascination and inability to control impulses that are often symptoms of the condition.

That has not always been the case: in 2001, a judge angrily dismissed claims that Mr. McCollum deserved leniency because of the disorder, saying she had looked up Asperger syndrome on the Internet and concluded the defendant did not have it.

A spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney’s office declined to comment on what might happen to Mr. McCollum after his sentencing. But his legal team noted that they could not have come this far without cooperation from prosecutors.

“We’re at the end of the process,” Ms. Butler said. “We’re crawling to the finish line.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/nyregion/jailed-often-because-of-his-transit-obsession-man-may-get-help.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

 

I personally don't know if this will last, I believe a few years ago he got paroled on similar conditions but the "residential program" felt he was too smart for their services and released him.

[-CT1660-]

The foam is critical....

[Fan Railer]

lol

[realizm]

The foam is critical....

 

I loled too. We just have to laugh it off sometimes, it's all a part of human nature.

 

But on a serious note, this has nothing to do with railfanning because this man is seriously suffering from a debilitating illness which is no laughing matter. Most transit enthusiasts lead successful lives these days, in careers, having healthy lives, many in intimate relationships with a person of the opposite sex, and perfectly fine from a clinical standpoint. I'm actually concerned that this journalist does not understand these facts about this hobby and is making blanket statements here based on a false stereotype, concerning transit enthusiasts.

 

I guess from what I know from nursing school as far as the mental disorder he may be suffering from, which is not cited in detail in the article, what the article suggests is that the person is suffering from a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder, aggravated from Asperger's syndrome but that's a preliminary clinical diagnosis I believe. They did cite that the psychiatric condition could have been triggered  from an assault where he was stabbed several times.

 

Note how mental conditions develop. His first offense was at the age of 15. Many times psychological disorders usually become apparent as a boy and girl goes through puberty.

 

Sometimes when a person experiences a severely traumatic situation, that can subconsciously cause a person to dissociate him or herself from reality as a way to endure the psychological pain, hence in his case the extremely daring and risky acts. 

 

 I feel bad for the dude actually.

[Turbo19]

I genuinely feel bad for the guy. It would seem that McCollum has suffered and faced a lot in his personal life and has received little support from those outside his family.

 

I don't want to push a cliche but it looks like McCollum is committing these acts of crime in an attempt to reach out for help. While I agree he had to face the ramifications of committing criminal acts he should have received a form of counseling. Perhaps visiting a psychiatrist could help him out, or even attending an alternate form of therapy could work, but to continually place him in a prison with no further action taken isn't helping him at all.

[realizm]

I genuinely feel bad for the guy. It would seem that McCollum has suffered and faced a lot in his personal life and has received little support from those outside his family.

 

I don't want to push a cliche but it looks like McCollum is committing these acts of crime in an attempt to reach out for help. While I agree he had to face the ramifications of committing criminal acts he should have received a form of counseling. Perhaps visiting a psychiatrist could help him out, or even attending an alternate form of therapy could work, but to continually place him in a prison with no further action taken isn't helping him at all.

 

You are not sounding cliche, that rather would exactly be what health care professionals specializing in psychiatry has established concerning another aspect of the behavior of those grievously suffering from mental disorders. In fact those who are suicidal often also make such attempts such as the slashing of the wrists as a desprate cry for help. I totally agree with the points brought out in your post.