Local people share the pain caused by drugs, crime

PATTERSON — Lisa Smith of Patterson still thinks about the phone call, “the worst call a parent could get.”

It was Thanksgiving. And the call said her son had taken an overdose of fentanyl. The opioid is so lethal that Coroner Eric Melancon says an amount barely big enough to cover the year on a penny can kill. Melancon said the parish averages about three overdose deaths per month.

“I deal with it through prayer, through prayer and through church ...,” Smith said at Monday’s town hall meeting at the Patterson Area Civic Center. “We have to get together and fight for our kids. They’re dying every day.”

The series of Monday night town hall meetings has brought together police officers, school officials, mayors and others who have seen gun violence, drug crime and domestic violence escalate in recent months.

The most recent town hall meeting featured seven women who have felt the pain most intensely, the mothers and aunts of drug users and crime victims.

Keishia Howard of Morgan City was there, accompanied by Hollis Wilson-Davis of Patter-son for support. Howard lost a son and a nephew to violence within a year in 2018 and 2019.

She didn’t say much at the town hall meeting. Others spoke about their anguish, the faith that helped them through it and their pleas to fight crime.

Chakeyta Anderson of Franklin lost her brother-in-law, who was the victim in a homicide Jan. 12. Anderson is a church-goer and a mental health counselor, and she’s found both pursuits helpful.

Catalene Theriot of Franklin lost a son to a homicide in 1994. The killer turned out to be a friend who came to the funeral.

“A mother feels so different when you lose a child,” Theriot said. “I wouldn’t wish it on an enemy.”

Marcelle Hoskins’ son Jalen, 31, was shot to death in March in Lafayette after struggling with substance abuse and trying to rebuild his life.

Hoskins acknowledged her son’s struggles. He was outspoken, she said, but he was a caring person who tried to be a good father.

The call came at 11:30 p.m. “I knew that he was gone,” Hoskins said.

Regina Thomas of Franklin played a tape of her son describing the night he was shot.

On audio, he talked about “me being stubborn and being young and stupid. ... You don’t have to use a gun because there’s two ways you can go. ... It could have went bad that night.”

“He was hit twice,” Thomas said, “but there were multiple shots fired at him. ...

“Our children are on a pathway they don’t know how to come back from,” she said.

Not all of the testimony came from the women at the table on the stage.

Franklin Mayor Eugene Foulcard rose from the audience to say he lost two nephews a month apart in 2016.

One, 16, was shot to death behind the wheel of a car after being lured by the offer of a cellphone. The other, 30, was killed the following month in a Jefferson Parish robbery.

“I know that pain,” Foulcard said. “I know that heartache. I know what these families are going through. ...
“This has to stop.”

The panelists for the next town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Monday will be young people. The town hall will be at the Patterson Area Civic Center.