Speaker 1: O La Latino USA listener gomestas, here's a great show
Speaker 1: from the archives.
Speaker 2: Look look come here.
Speaker 3: That was always like his days. Look at him. This
Speaker 3: was in October of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: This is Darry Lugones Latino USA producer Maggie Freelin is
Speaker 1: with her in her living room in Brownsville, one of
Speaker 1: the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. It's the summer
Speaker 1: and they're sitting on the couch in front of them.
Speaker 1: A large fan is buzzing and water is puddling under
Speaker 1: a dripping clothesline strung across the room. It's eleven AM
Speaker 1: and Darry is half asleep in a robe and underwear.
Speaker 1: She rubs her eyes as she talks about her younger
Speaker 1: brother Edward.
Speaker 2: Oh, look I found one has wrapping things, has music.
Speaker 2: Okayquems out blue car.
Speaker 3: So see how volunteers. So I'm saying that that's the wayte.
Speaker 2: And this is his inspiration, little UZI like he just
Speaker 2: I can't even listen to that man no more because
Speaker 2: it's just like I guess had and it reminds me
Speaker 2: of him so much.
Speaker 3: And he's like, when I get older, I'm gonna be working.
Speaker 4: With him, and then yeah, you don't find him here
Speaker 4: in the living room, no more wrapping, reading his rhymes
Speaker 4: and none of that.
Speaker 3: That's weird, Like, you know, all I see is a ghost.
Speaker 2: Now when I come to the living room or to
Speaker 2: the kitchen, it just feels so empty without him here,
Speaker 2: Like it's.
Speaker 3: Just he was not the same.
Speaker 2: I don't really care you. I'm very attached to him,
Speaker 2: like very I don't care what we went through, how
Speaker 2: many downfoad we have. I mean, at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, not only because he's my brother, but in
Speaker 2: the house that was my best friend.
Speaker 1: The oldest girl and oldest boy of six kids were
Speaker 1: very close until a year ago, when Edward was eighteen
Speaker 1: years old. Court records show that on January third of
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Edward Cordero was on a busy subway platform
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Sixty five year old Jacintos Suarrez was also
Speaker 1: there waiting for the train. According to witnesses and Edward's
Speaker 1: own statement to the police, Edward was talking about God, spirits,
Speaker 1: and the devil, and he believed Swatis was the devil.
Speaker 1: At two twenty five pm, Edward punched Swatz from behind,
Speaker 1: causing him to fall onto the train tracks. Swatis suffered
Speaker 1: a heart attack and died. A New York Daily News
Speaker 1: video captured Edward moments after his arrest. Do you mean I, Oh, God,
Speaker 1: who died?
Speaker 3: He says.
Speaker 2: He's completely confused. He keeps saying, like, what did I do?
Speaker 2: They keep telling me that I killed the man, but
Speaker 2: I don't remember.
Speaker 1: What happened on that subway platform is tragic and it's
Speaker 1: extremely rare. Studies show that most people with mental illness
Speaker 1: are not violent, but the subway attack is also emblematic
Speaker 1: of something far too common in New York City, and
Speaker 1: beyond serious mental illness that goes untreated. Edward's sister, Dorry,
Speaker 1: says he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and
Speaker 1: although we can't independently confirm that, she says he was
Speaker 1: in and out of hospitals and on and off medication
Speaker 1: for years. She told us that at the time of
Speaker 1: the subway attack, he had recently been released from a
Speaker 1: hospital and may have gone off his medication.
Speaker 3: He was a dotty. That wasn't mean, like, that was
Speaker 3: not mean like I thought. That was a devil. And
Speaker 3: that's why I punched him the way I did.
Speaker 1: Edward is now in jail at Riker's Island, awaiting trial,
Speaker 1: and while his name is no longer in the headlines,
Speaker 1: his case points to the challenges of treating people with
Speaker 1: serious mental illness. From Fudromedia and PRX, It's Latino USA.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Josa. Today we look at how and why
Speaker 1: someone like Edward Cordero falls through the cracks of the
Speaker 1: mental health system. Latino USA producer Maggie Freeling is going
Speaker 1: to take it from here.
Speaker 5: Edward's case is complicated and we're not able to confirm
Speaker 5: all the details of his past. After Darry spoke with
Speaker 5: us last summer, she and Edward's public defender stopped communicating
Speaker 5: with us. I reached out to Edward in jail, but
Speaker 5: I got no response, and due to medical privacy laws,
Speaker 5: we don't know exactly how doctors tried to manage Edward's illness,
Speaker 5: but we do know that Edward's situation is similar to
Speaker 5: so many others in New York and beyond.
Speaker 2: It was like terrible, have we been going through the
Speaker 2: swim since he was littone? As long as I came Momer,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be able to tell you like the age,
Speaker 2: but I know he was very young.
Speaker 5: Darian Edward grew up in New York. They moved around
Speaker 5: from Staten Island to Brooklyn, and Daria now lives in
Speaker 5: public housing in Brownsville. The vast majority of Brownsville residents
Speaker 5: are people of color, and the area is notorious for
Speaker 5: crime and poor health outcomes. According to Drry, when Edward
Speaker 5: was a little boy, his father landed in prison and
Speaker 5: ultimately died by suicide.
Speaker 2: My mother was only six years old and he found
Speaker 2: out that his father has strangled himself in jail.
Speaker 3: That's not something you know, a six year old want
Speaker 3: to know.
Speaker 5: As Edward aged, Dorry says she watched his behavior change.
Speaker 5: He would get aggressive and violent, hitting and biting people.
Speaker 3: We didn't know what was wrong.
Speaker 2: We thought it was just like you know, teenage behavior
Speaker 2: basically like oh, you know, him going through a boy face.
Speaker 2: We never took it as a whole thing up until
Speaker 2: he got older, I would say, like sixteen, because that's
Speaker 2: when everything like basically started like that. We started noticing
Speaker 2: that he had issues when he started getting.
Speaker 3: Like really into this church thing.
Speaker 2: He just kept talking about, Oh people was Satans, We
Speaker 2: was warlocks because we wasn't married and we'd have kids
Speaker 2: and I'm like, what the hell, Like, what is this?
Speaker 2: And that's when like my mom finally decided, you know,
Speaker 2: you need to be in a hospital.
Speaker 6: And so the cycle began.
Speaker 5: Edward would rotate in and out of hospitals during psychotic episodes,
Speaker 5: but his circumstances did not improve.
Speaker 2: And then he had to go in and out of
Speaker 2: the hospitals. He eighteen, and they just like, oh, like okay,
Speaker 2: you were allowed to go by yourself.
Speaker 5: Allowed to leave the hospital alone because at eighteen, Edward
Speaker 5: was legally an adult.
Speaker 6: Darry says.
Speaker 5: One time Edward was released from the hospital without supervision and.
Speaker 3: They were released his medicine to him, as that are
Speaker 3: released in his house.
Speaker 5: Edward was left in charge of his own medicine and
Speaker 5: instead of taking it, darry says, he flushed it down
Speaker 5: the toilet.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, what the like, this is just so unpropression.
Speaker 6: And his behavior was getting worse.
Speaker 3: He was attacking me for no reason.
Speaker 5: The family felt helpless, and at this point we should
Speaker 5: just sidestep for a minute to lay out what exactly
Speaker 5: we mean by serious mental illness.
Speaker 7: We're typically talking about illnesses that include psychosis.
Speaker 6: This is John Snook.
Speaker 5: He runs the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that pushes
Speaker 5: for better treatment for people with serious mental illness.
Speaker 7: So things like schizophrenia, schizo effective disorder, and bipolar disorder.
Speaker 7: They're typically the illnesses that are the most severe, hence
Speaker 7: the name, and really is one of the most debilitating
Speaker 7: diseases we have right now.
Speaker 6: As a nation.
Speaker 5: Serious mental illness is hard enough to handle if you're
Speaker 5: wealthy and have access to the best care. For someone
Speaker 5: like Edward, it's the worst kind of slippery slope.
Speaker 7: And mental illness is like any other illness, So if
Speaker 7: you don't provide the sort of care that that person needs,
Speaker 7: they're going to get worse and eventually you're dealing with
Speaker 7: the crisis.
Speaker 5: And that's what happened with Edward. Several months before the
Speaker 5: alleged subway attack, Edward was arrested in his neighborhood for robbery.
Speaker 5: Court records and a police report state that Edward ripped
Speaker 5: a purse from the shoulder of a twenty five year
Speaker 5: old woman. He was arrested and charged with seven offenses,
Speaker 5: including menacing, harassing, and robbery in the second degree, a felony.
Speaker 5: He was arraigned and the judge ordered him released without bail,
Speaker 5: so Edward was back on the street, and Darry says
Speaker 5: at some point after that he was once again hospitalized.
Speaker 2: He was just recently in there. I remember on Thanksgiving
Speaker 2: he wasn't here with the family. We were speaking to
Speaker 2: him over the phone. And then next thing you know
Speaker 2: already but like I would say, like the d of
Speaker 2: November to like the beginning of December, he was out again.
Speaker 2: The new year came, he was home with us, and
Speaker 2: then that night before he had like a relapse over here,
Speaker 2: like now, I'm just cleaning my room and he just
Speaker 2: I don't know where. It was like, oh, like your
Speaker 2: devil child and throws something and I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 2: That was the last I've seen for him. And then
Speaker 2: the next day come and that's when it happened.
Speaker 8: Investigators believe Edward Caderro Sucker punched the grandfather, causing him
Speaker 8: to fall onto the tracks. Saus died at the hospital.
Speaker 5: The day after Edward fought with dari was when he
Speaker 5: allegedly killed hecinto Suarez. In Edward's own statement after his arrest,
Speaker 5: he says, I wanted the guy to see my face.
Speaker 5: End quote see Jesus Christ defeats evil. Jacinto Suarez was
Speaker 5: a father and grandfather.
Speaker 8: His oldest son, barely finding the words to express his grief.
Speaker 3: Just stop, stump, tired man.
Speaker 8: Can't believe this happened, you.
Speaker 3: Know, definitely not definitely not gone to song. It's my daddy.
Speaker 5: Tragic events like this one fuel fear and stigma, and
Speaker 5: they raise the question why is it so hard to
Speaker 5: provide care to someone with a serious mental illness like Edward?
Speaker 5: Care that might have prevented this tragedy.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA, we dig into the problems
Speaker 1: and look at some solutions. Stay with us. Hey, we're back,
Speaker 1: and we're going to zoom out now to understand how
Speaker 1: the failure to treat Edward Gordedo's mental illness connects to
Speaker 1: larger systemic problems. Let's go back now to let you
Speaker 1: know USA producer Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 5: To be clear, tackling everything that's wrong with the mental
Speaker 5: health system in one episode is pretty impossible. So we're
Speaker 5: going to focus on a few common problems that we
Speaker 5: believe directly affected Edward. One of them is the nationwide
Speaker 5: shortage of inpatient hospital beds for psychiatric care. Emergency hospitalization
Speaker 5: is one way to provide urgent care to someone in
Speaker 5: a mental health crisis, as you heard about with Edward.
Speaker 5: People are monitored and may receive new or different medication
Speaker 5: or other treatments.
Speaker 6: But as John Snook, the Mental health Advocate.
Speaker 7: Explains, unfortunately New York's standard for getting into a hospital
Speaker 7: bed is very high. It typically requires that a person
Speaker 7: evidence that they're dangerous to themselves or someone else. And
Speaker 7: most states have recognized that that's a that's a dumb
Speaker 7: way to provide medical care. But the standard is are
Speaker 7: they dangerous not do they need help? Hopefully their illness
Speaker 7: is manifesting in such a way that they seem violent
Speaker 7: or they seem suicidal, which is a terrible thing to
Speaker 7: hope for, but that's how you get into care.
Speaker 5: And Edward did make it into a hospital bed and
Speaker 5: on multiple occasions, as his sister Darry told us, but
Speaker 5: it was only temporary and hospital beds are being cut
Speaker 5: across the country. In twenty sixteen, John Snook's organization, the
Speaker 5: Treatment Advocacy Center, published a report on the number of
Speaker 5: state hospital beds available for psychiatric patients. It found that
Speaker 5: the number of beds had fallen to an all time
Speaker 5: Low and John Snook says the shortage of beds forces
Speaker 5: doctors to make difficult decisions.
Speaker 7: What you end up with is situations where, unfortunately doctors
Speaker 7: have to triage, and so they aren't able to think about, well,
Speaker 7: how can I ensure that this person is in an
Speaker 7: impatient facility long enough to really get well and recover.
Speaker 7: They're thinking about how do I prevent the next headline,
Speaker 7: who is the most seriously ill person that I need
Speaker 7: to get into this bed right now? And how can
Speaker 7: I get them out of that bed as quickly as
Speaker 7: possible because I need it for someone else.
Speaker 5: And so to put this all in context, we have
Speaker 5: to go back to the nineteen sixties. Before then, people
Speaker 5: with serious mental illness would typically go to state run
Speaker 5: psychiatric hospitals. But by the middle of the twentieth century
Speaker 5: these institutions were on the decline, and books and movies
Speaker 5: like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest didn't help their reputation.
Speaker 8: You guys do nothing but complain about how you can't
Speaker 8: stand it in this place here, and then you haven't
Speaker 8: got the.
Speaker 6: Guts just to walk out.
Speaker 3: How do you think you are for.
Speaker 5: Pricing after years of scandals at state run psychiatric institutions.
Speaker 6: There was a shift. The government began shutting them down,
Speaker 6: and we.
Speaker 2: Have to offer something more than crowded because studio care
Speaker 2: and our state institutions.
Speaker 5: In nineteen sixty three, President Kennedy signed the Community Mental
Speaker 5: Health Act. Under this legislation, custodial mental institutions will be
Speaker 5: replaced by therapeutic senates. The new law pushed for people
Speaker 5: with mental illness to be cared for within their own communities,
Speaker 5: not sent away to institutions. It was a process called deinstitutionalization.
Speaker 5: While the law established new ideals for serving people with
Speaker 5: mental illness, it also resulted in many people who needed
Speaker 5: long term care ending up on the streets and homeless. Today,
Speaker 5: while four percent of adults in the US have a
Speaker 5: serious mental illness, they're over represented in the homeless population
Speaker 5: and in correctional facilities. And the cutting of hospital beds
Speaker 5: is not just a problem for patients and their advocates,
Speaker 5: it's a challenge for doctors too. Doctor Iman Finuse is
Speaker 5: a psychiatrist and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at
Speaker 5: Sunny Downstate Medical Center in New York City. He's worked
Speaker 5: in the er treating people like Edward.
Speaker 9: I can tell you that on a personal level, I
Speaker 9: have had a number of situations where we've had a
Speaker 9: patient who really needed hospitation baddling just had nowhere to
Speaker 9: go because we had no beds in the area.
Speaker 5: And so people without family support or other resources have
Speaker 5: few options. It's also important to say how overstretched healthcare
Speaker 5: providers are, especially in neighborhoods like Edwards. According to New
Speaker 5: York City data, Brownsville has the second highest rate of
Speaker 5: psychiatric hospitalizations in the city and the least access to healthcare.
Speaker 5: Doctor Finuse works in Flatbush, a neighborhood in Brooklyn close
Speaker 5: to Edwards, and with similar problems.
Speaker 9: We're dealing with communities that are long suffering, and they've
Speaker 9: been the victims of severe injustice over centuries, and to
Speaker 9: have this sort of perpetuated in these kinds of illnesses
Speaker 9: going untreated as a major sort of tragic situation.
Speaker 5: So when getting stabilized in a hospital fails, there's still
Speaker 5: a backup plan that some of the most extreme cases
Speaker 5: can fall into. And it's controversial. One reason I want
Speaker 5: to tell you about it is because of how it
Speaker 5: came about. It began with a situation eerily similar to
Speaker 5: Edwards in the subway.
Speaker 6: Exactly nineteen years to.
Speaker 5: The date before Edward allegedly pushed Jacinto Suarez onto the tracks,
Speaker 5: Kendra Webdeal was also standing on a New York City
Speaker 5: subway platform. An unmedicated man with schizophrenia pushed her into
Speaker 5: the path of an oncoming train, and he had recently
Speaker 5: been released from a hospital. Kendra was thirty two when
Speaker 5: she died, and after that her family became outspoken about
Speaker 5: care for people with serious mental illness.
Speaker 10: When Kendra was pushed toward death in front of a
Speaker 10: New York City subway train, we later learned of the
Speaker 10: ongoing hardships encountered by some of the mentally ill themselves,
Speaker 10: and the anguish experienced by their families who have tried,
Speaker 10: often unsuccessfully, to get their loved ones the help they
Speaker 10: desperately need.
Speaker 6: This is Kendra's mom.
Speaker 5: In nineteen ninety nine, her family played a critical role
Speaker 5: in passing Kendro's Law, a state law that created something
Speaker 5: called assisted outpatient treatment, or AOT. The law makes it
Speaker 5: possible for a judge to court order someone treatment without
Speaker 5: putting them in a hospital. The treatment can include medication, therapy,
Speaker 5: and case management, but it's not easy to qualify. A
Speaker 5: judge has to decide that the person who is mentally
Speaker 5: ill is unable to live safely without supervision. Opponents of
Speaker 5: Kendra's law, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, say
Speaker 5: it violates the right to determine one's own treatment, but
Speaker 5: still courts have upheld the law is constitutional. An independent
Speaker 5: evaluation found that AOT reduces the likelihood that recipients will
Speaker 5: be rehospitalized, incarcerated, or end up homeless, and today forty
Speaker 5: seven states have some version of AOT, and.
Speaker 10: Most of all, Kendra's law represents hope that another family
Speaker 10: will never have to experience the heartache of losing a
Speaker 10: cherished member of their family.
Speaker 6: But assisted out patient treatment is not a cure.
Speaker 5: John Snook from the Treatment Advocacy Center says this is
Speaker 5: the crux of the entire problem. AOT is a band
Speaker 5: aid from when people are in the worst possible scenario.
Speaker 7: Because we are in this cycle of letting people fall
Speaker 7: apart and only getting them care when they're at their
Speaker 7: very sickest, we just never catch up. It'd be as
Speaker 7: if we had a cardiac center, but we only provided
Speaker 7: care to people once they had a heart attack. And
Speaker 7: then we were surprised at how expensive and broken the
Speaker 7: system was.
Speaker 5: Although Edward Cordero may have qualified for AOT when he
Speaker 5: became an adult almost a year before the incident, this
Speaker 5: specific safety net does not appear to have caught him.
Speaker 5: Edward's sister darry says she doesn't remember anyone telling her
Speaker 5: about it as an option. Clearly, creating a system that
Speaker 5: can manage care for everyone who needs it is a
Speaker 5: big challenge. It would take years of legislation, funding and training.
Speaker 5: But there is one solution that pretty much everyone agrees
Speaker 5: on that people with serious mental illness need regular monitoring,
Speaker 5: case management, and support.
Speaker 11: We're not of East New York, along with Best, which
Speaker 11: is a.
Speaker 3: Town over we want.
Speaker 5: I'm standing on a street corner in Edward's old neighborhood
Speaker 5: with Ana Miguel. She works with people who have serious
Speaker 5: mental illness, and she herself was diagnosed with schizophrenia and
Speaker 5: bipolar disorder, so she knows firsthand what the people she
Speaker 5: sees are going through. Anna works on an ACT team
Speaker 5: that's ACT for Assertive Community Treatment. Anna's job is to
Speaker 5: go to the homes of people who are too sick
Speaker 5: to seek out care and check in Are they eating?
Speaker 5: Do they need groceries? Are they taking their medications? Are
Speaker 5: they sticking with their treatment plans? I asked her to
Speaker 5: describe a typical debt.
Speaker 11: Oooh not easy. I see eleven, sometimes twelve clients in
Speaker 11: one day. That temperature on Monto Luther King's that it
Speaker 11: was like zero's. I was out here working, I had
Speaker 11: thirteen clients that day. My phone finally froze, went black
Speaker 11: and I couldn't see the last two clients because it
Speaker 11: was in Coney Island.
Speaker 6: Today, I'm going with Anna on a home visit.
Speaker 11: We are going to see a client that's actually receptive
Speaker 11: to this visit.
Speaker 3: We can get off here and walk over.
Speaker 5: There along with us as a nurse practitioner who takes
Speaker 5: care of any medical needs that may arise. And for
Speaker 5: confidentiality reasons, we're not identifying the young man we went
Speaker 5: to visit coffee, the nurse is giving him a shot
Speaker 5: of antipsychotic medication. Anna tells me this particular client has
Speaker 5: been improving steadily since she's been seeing him.
Speaker 3: He's so proud of.
Speaker 8: Me.
Speaker 1: Well, you give me a minute.
Speaker 10: Yes, how was it all right?
Speaker 3: Awesome? I's good to see.
Speaker 6: The check in lasted about twenty minutes.
Speaker 5: After the client got his medication, Anna just chatted with
Speaker 5: him about music, the weather, everyday things, just to make
Speaker 5: sure he seemed okay, A yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 6: And then she left for another apartment.
Speaker 11: We are off to the East flat Bush area.
Speaker 5: In addition to visits like this, one part of Anna's
Speaker 5: job is to simply let people know what services are
Speaker 5: available in their community. She tells me that she walks
Speaker 5: around to spread the word in the neighborhood, a place
Speaker 5: that historically access to health services. In October, a brand
Speaker 5: new health hub opened in East New York. It's run
Speaker 5: by the Institute for Community Living in New York based nonprofit.
Speaker 5: It's a pretty big deal and that's why it made
Speaker 5: local TV news.
Speaker 12: This East New York health hub is offering so many
Speaker 12: services that those who organize it say they want to
Speaker 12: be the primary model for what healthcare can look like.
Speaker 5: Anna's based at the hub, and many of her clients
Speaker 5: come and see her there too, where they can also
Speaker 5: get care for things like general checkups and join group
Speaker 5: programs like art classes and job training. In addition to
Speaker 5: the hub itself, New York City officials say they're spending
Speaker 5: more money to expand the use of these act teams
Speaker 5: like Anna's. In fact, New York City is in the
Speaker 5: midst of a multi year initiative called Thrive and YC.
Speaker 5: It's spending hundreds of millions of dollars on mental health services.
Speaker 5: Doctor Gary Belkin is one of the people leading that charge.
Speaker 5: When I spoke with him in September, he was aware
Speaker 5: of the uphill battle the city's facing to take care
Speaker 5: of people with serious mental illness.
Speaker 13: We're catching up with being satisfied with a system that
Speaker 13: is not performing in the way that we should expect
Speaker 13: it to. Part of that is it's fragmented by design,
Speaker 13: is underfunded by design. It's the source of great stigma
Speaker 13: and avoidance, and all of those things need to be
Speaker 13: faced if we're going to have it work better.
Speaker 5: Belkin is now the chief of Policy and Strategy for
Speaker 5: Thrive MIC. The initiative was launched in twenty fifteen and
Speaker 5: has promised to spend as much as two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty million dollars a year on dozens of programs. It's
Speaker 5: the largest city based mental health initiative in the country,
Speaker 5: and city leaders have called it a model for communities nationwide. However,
Speaker 5: the initiative is facing criticism. The New York City Council
Speaker 5: and the City's Controller are taking a close look at
Speaker 5: thrive MIC's funding and effectiveness, and many critics say it
Speaker 5: fails to prioritize the people who need help them most
Speaker 5: people with serious mental illness, like Edward.
Speaker 6: Doctor Belkin acknowledges that criticism.
Speaker 13: That criticism often comes from a very credible place. These
Speaker 13: are people who have lost loved ones, who have tried
Speaker 13: to get them through this system that doesn't make sense,
Speaker 13: and they want that fext.
Speaker 2: This is not the first time, it is not the
Speaker 2: last time that it happened. Pretty sure thing will be
Speaker 2: so much completely different if they was to open up
Speaker 2: more places that can handle mental people and help them.
Speaker 2: They're also human. They're just you know, people that are
Speaker 2: not in the rest date of mind. They disable and
Speaker 2: all they need is help, honestly.
Speaker 5: Edward Cordero is now in jail at Riker's Island awaiting trial,
Speaker 5: and he's facing up to twenty five years in prison.
Speaker 5: Darry told me she visits and talks to her brother often.
Speaker 5: She says, Edward also misses watching his neph Darry's son
Speaker 5: grow up.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel right to his talk on the phone
Speaker 2: with him, and then it's like I'm.
Speaker 3: Out to cry.
Speaker 2: Like I speak to him on the phone, he's not
Speaker 2: like a grown man, like speaking of me night. Oh,
Speaker 2: I just want to tell you they're doing such a
Speaker 2: great job of my nephew.
Speaker 3: And like I'm proud of you, like I like the
Speaker 3: way you bring him up.
Speaker 2: They go, oh, I can't wait till I see you,
Speaker 2: like and I love you and like, you know, stuff
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I guess we mad emotion.
Speaker 5: A few months ago, I went to watch one of
Speaker 5: Edward's court hearings. He was almost unrecognizable from the angry
Speaker 5: young man in the New York Daily News video. He
Speaker 5: had gained weight, grew his hair out, and looked soft
Speaker 5: and sad. The judge checked in with him and his lawyer,
Speaker 5: and then as he was leaving, Edward turned to his mom.
Speaker 5: She was sitting behind him crying, and he smiled and whispered,
Speaker 5: Hi Mom, and in his handcuffs he tried to wave.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Maggie Freeling. It was edited
Speaker 1: by Alison McCadam and mixed by Stephanie Lebau. Fact Checking
Speaker 1: for this episode by Amy Tardiff. The Latino USA team
Speaker 1: also includes Victori Estrada, Renaldo Leanos Junior, Andrea Lopez Crusado,
Speaker 1: Johni mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Nour Saudi and
Speaker 1: Nancy Trujillo.
Speaker 7: Penni.
Speaker 1: Lei Ramirez is our co executive producer. Our senior engineer
Speaker 1: is Julia Caruso, our marketing managers lisnowon up. Our theme
Speaker 1: music was composed by Seger Ruinos. I'm your host and
Speaker 1: executive producer Maria Josa. Join us again on our next episode.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I'll see all of you on social
Speaker 1: media and on Instagram. Aestel Approxima, Yes Bye.
Speaker 6: Funding for Latino US coverage of a Culture of Health
Speaker 6: is made possible in part by a grant from the
Speaker 6: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Latino USA is made possible in
Speaker 6: part by W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner with Communities
Speaker 6: where Children Come First, and the TAU Foundation,