The 'angel' of Skid Row: Cop who made one of America's worst areas 'safer and cleaner' by helping homeless find housing, teaching women self-defense and not focusing on arrests - and never once fired his gun
- Deon Joseph is an LAPD officer who has worked the Skid Row neighborhood for 17 years
- Skid Row is one of the poorest areas in the country, with 2,000 people sleeping on the street every night and rampant, and open, drug use
- Joseph has made a point of building relationships with the people in Skid Row, and trying to help them improve their situation
- He hands out his cell phone number and email, as well as hygiene kits and flyers that help people apply for affordable housing
- He also teaches a women's self-defense class called Ladies Night
- Joseph has never fired his gun once during his time as an officer - and says he does not intend to
PUBLISHED: 23:23 EST, 3 January 2015 | UPDATED: 06:13 EST, 5 January 2015
An
officer who has spent 17 years patrolling one of America's worst areas
has found a way to keep the peace that focuses less on arrests, and more
on helping those who have fallen on the most difficult of times.
Deon
Joseph, or the Sheriff of Skidberry as he is known to many in the area,
works on Skid Row, the Los Angeles neighborhood known for its
overwhelmingly high homeless population, with some 2,000 people sleeping
on the streets every night, and where drugs are drug addicts are all
around.
He
is less concerned with arrests however than with keeping the order by
helping those in the community, preferring to do his rounds on foot and
not in his squad car as he checks on the homeless and drug addicts,
referring to them all as 'sir' or 'ma'am' to show them the respect they
do not get anywhere else, and passes out hygiene kits to make sure they
are staying clean.
Joseph
has also never once fired his gun - and the LAPD says crime is dropping
and the streets are safer and cleaner than they were just two years ago
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LAPD officer Deon Joseph has patrolled Skid Row for 17 years, photo courtesy of Skid Row Stories
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Skid Row is one of the worst neighborhood's in the country, with massive poverty, homelessness and drug usage
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LAPD says crime is dropping and the streets are safer and cleaner than they were just two years ago
'You cannot separate the blight and crap that's out here from death,' Joseph told a CNN reporter as they walked through the area.
'One
time I saw a guy sitting on a pile of trash and I saw a hand, a white
hand. I thought it was a mannequin. It wasn't a mannequin. It was a dead
woman. He didn't realize he was sitting on top of a dead woman, eating
donated food.'
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Joseph
also shares stories of addicts he has seen drop hundreds of pounds as
they succumb to drugs, the constant unsanitary conditions that give Skid
row the smell of 'urine, feces and burning crack and weed,' and how,
despite all of this, the people who live here are his people.
It's
not just the hygiene kits that separate him from other officers around
the country, but the self-defense class he teaches for women in the area
called 'Ladies Night,' and the flyers he hands out letting people know
how they can apply for housing and his belief that he would rather make
sure an addict is alive and safe rather than arrest them.
He
also hands out his cell phone and email info for anyone who wants to
contact him at any time - and doesn't mind when residents refer to him
as Deon and not Officer Joseph.
'I feel respect when they call me by my first name, and I show them respect by calling them sir or ma'am.'
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Homeless people rest on a public sidewalk in downtown Skid Row
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Officer Joseph believes that the key to helping Skid Row residents is affordable housing
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Joseph spends his days passing out his email and cell phone number to people so they can contact him
The
only thing he can't provide is the one thing he believes Skid Row needs
more than anything to turn things around - affordable housing.
'Skid Row is a toxic petri dish that thwarts any form of recovery,' says Joseph.
'We have beer barons selling singles for $2, right outside AA meetings.'
This
may be the time that things do finally turn around for the area
however, which will hopefully benefit from the $2billion earmarked for
subsidized housing in next year's $1.1trillion federal spending bill.
As
for Joseph, his path to the job seems to be the direct result of a life
changing mistake his father almost made as a younger man.
Angered
over the murder of his father, Joseph's grandfather, by a 16-year-old
white boy in Louisiana, his rage almost put him on the path to a life of
crime - until he tried to mug a preacher at gunpoint.
'Put that gun down, boy,' the man said.
'You're not going to jail today, but I want to see you in church.'
He
did go to church, and would later pay that opportunity for a second
chance forward, started a construction company that made a point of
employing ex-convicts.
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'You cannot separate the blight and crap that's out here from death,' said Joseph
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Joseph and Officer Banks working remote cameras placed in LA's Downtown Skid Row
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Joseph devotes almost all his time to Skid Row, which he consider his neighborhood and whose residents are his people
Joseph's mother meanwhile spent her time feeding the homeless, while also raising the 41 foster children the family took in.
And now, Joseph is continuing the family tradition of helping others, no matter what their circumstance.
'This is what I have to do, he explains.
'I
can go anywhere in this department. There are 17 divisions. I can go
back to Venice, sip on lattes, chase celebrities in Hollywood. I can go
anywhere. I can leave at any time. I choose to be here. I want to help
these people. It's in my heart to help these people.'
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