My Son Was Shot Yesterday And Is Fighting For His Life; Law Enforcement Has Him In Protective Custody And Won’t Let Family See Him

Location: New Mexico

My adult son was shot yesterday outside our home. His condition is stabilizing but he is not out of the woods yet. I was at the hospital yesterday evening and he was in between surgeries (they had operated on him when he was brought in earlier but he lost so much blood they had to stop and stabilize him before continuing) and I was able to see him for a bit, although he was not awake. When he was out of surgery, a nurse came out and explained to me that he was doing better and they got the bleeding to stop so I am hopeful that he got through the worst of it. She then explained that law enforcement has my son in protective custody and we couldn’t go back to see him. This was a huge punch to the gut as I feel like being near loved ones at a time like this can be helpful to recovery. I’m still unclear of the circumstances of the shooting or why my son was arrested but I’m seeking advice on how to proceed.

It’s possible that the arrest has nothing to do with the shooting as my sister looked him up on our state court case website and he did have a warrant from a 2016 charge for battery on a police officer. He had called me earlier in the day before he got shot and told me he got into an altercation at a nearby gas station because someone was trying to steal his money. So the arrest could have something to do with this or possibly another incident that happened at a hospital a couple months back where he kicked in a door and caused it to go off track; I was told they were going to press charges on him for the incident but we never heard back about it.

So I just don’t know why he is arrested and I’m not sure how to find out. It’s frustrating because I want to be at the hospital with my son while he recovers but now there’s this whole other legal matter complicating things. I’m in a fog right now, any advice would be appreciated.

I re-read before posting and I feel there is more information about my son that is important to know. I adopted him when he was 11. We are different races, I am Hispanic and he is African-American. I met him when he was 7 years old, I was working at an elementary school at the time. I was supervising a before-and-after school recreation site and was also a teacher’s aide in one of the classrooms during the day. So when his foster parents enrolled him, I was seeing this kid about 9 hours a day as he was also placed in the classroom I worked in. He was a tough kid, always getting into fights. His speech sometimes made him difficult to understand and a lot of people dismissed him as a bad kid. But anytime kids would fight in my rec program, I would sit them down and process the fight with them. As my son was always fighting, I got to know him well. And what I found out was that he was actually always getting into fights to protect someone. He was fighting the bullies for the little guy. So over two years, I got to see this kid grow and make a lot of progress.

As I got to know him, I learned how tough his little life had been before. Him and his brother were taken by CPS when he was 2 and his brother was 5. They were placed with their grandma at the time but when he was 5, CPS removed them and placed them in a regular foster home. When he was about 7, he was separated from his brother and placed in Treatment foster care. So, lots of loss for this little guy at such a young age.

After about 2 years in my program and classroom, his Treatment foster parents made a decision to stop fostering and he was placed in a new home and all the progress he made went down the drain. I saw him struggling with life and when he asked me if I could be his dad, I couldn’t say no. After the adoption, he actually did really well until he was about 14. That’s when he was busted for breaking into a home and he stayed on juvenile probation until he was 18. He was in and out of juvie and hospitals for behavioral issues from 14-18 and his anger was always with him.

When he was about 22, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. This changed everything for him. I was glad to find out what was happening to my son because his behavior had become so bizarre but damn, schizophrenia is one bad muther. He refused to take meds and became homeless and was in and out of jail and on the streets for about 5 or 6 years. The last time he was in jail, they referred him to a program where he would get a shot once a month and it was a life changer. I felt like I got my son back. He was able to maintain in a group home for about 4 years and about 3½ years ago, we bought a house together and he’s been back living with me since.

Like I said earlier, he had a lot of anger when he was younger. I’m not sure how, but when he got diagnosed with schizophrenia, his anger sort of changed. Now, when he would get angry, it wasn’t so explosive. More like just regular anger that we all deal with from time to time, and definitely a lot less frequent. But lately my son has been “off” and I’ve seen his anger pop up more often and more frequently. I mentioned the incident when he kicked a door off track. This happened at his med hospital where he gets his monthly shot. They deal with this type of thing on a daily basis so I was kind of surprised that they said they would be pressing charges, especially when we went back later for his shot and the door was already fixed. I had also mentioned a conversation I had with my son about an hour before he was shot. I’m kicking myself because I didn’t pay more attention to this conversation; he was telling me about how someone was trying to steal his money and how he threw his soda at them and how he was going to “sue” the gas station but I chalked this conversation up to just my son being my son. I’m not sure if the arrest has something to do with this incident.

Treating schizophrenia is a tough business and changes the doctors try sometimes don’t work as well as we hope. They recently reduced his med level for the shot because he is at the highest dose. Both my son and I were willing to try this but six months later, I’m not sure it was the right decision. His anger has started to increase and he’s been popping off more than usual. My other concern for my son right now is the fact that he is African-American. I work with LE so I have a strong respect for them but I also know that if my son has been arrested for that battery charge from 2016, there could be some bias on their end. And if they don’t know his full story, I worry that they could mistreat him. My son has a lot of people who love him, my family was ready to show up yesterday and I got a hold of his biological brother last night and he was able to go in with me when my son was in between surgeries. A lot is up in the air right now, I want to focus on my son’s recovery but this legal matter has added a complication that is making this situation so much harder to deal with.

Fellow Redditors, any advice would be greatly appreciated and prayers for my son’s recovery would be appreciated as well. I’ll try to answer any questions as I feel like typing this all out is helping me process everything.