'From crisis to death': Probing teen's last, desperate hours

“And the reality is there’s things that happened that were wrong.”___Friends who met C.J. in foster care described him as a goofball, fun loving, with a dark childhood that he hinted at but never talked about much. Ultimately, a judge signed an order removing Lofton from his home, noting there was “no parent/guardian present.” By August 2019, a court filing found that he was doing “very well” in foster care.(AP Video/Luke Sheridan)C.J. moved around at first, friends said. “Gangs are like a family,” Patton said, but C.J. had vowed to leave that behind and “do better.” The lyrics were merely what sold, he told friends. But she added: “I was just glad that he was just telling me stuff.” Friends said C.J. planned to remain in foster care until he finished high school. C.J. walked away from school that day and his foster father called police to report him as a runaway. He said C.J. had mentioned “he can get access to a gun.” He suspected the teen had schizophrenia. C.J., who had told his foster father that he feared police would shoot him, empties his pockets at one point -- apparently, to show the officers he is unarmed. An officer asks him again about the hospital.“The hospital,” C.J. says. “It shocks me how this child is telling you they are seeing things that don’t exist and an alternate decision, aside from taking him to the hospital, was made,” said Brittany Brest, a community psychologist who is overseeing a grant from the National Alliance on Mental Illness to better support Kansas inmates.Even one of the officers can be heard questioning the change of destination during the drive, arguing that C.J. would fare better at the mental hospital. The officers C.J. bit, he said, were “putting themselves in positions of being battered” because they were putting their hands in front of his mouth.A second officer responds, simply, “It is not our call.”They pull into the juvenile center at 2:44 a.m. and multiple officers carry him inside. Robert Spitzer, author of “Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights,” said Bennett’s interpretation is a “perfectly logical application” of a law that he described as “deeply problematic.” Bennett agrees, calling on the Legislature to change the law and raising questions about nearly everyone involved in C.J.’s care, from the juvenile workers to the foster care system.“This,” he said, “should never have happened.”