Girls' Life In Mother's Drug Web -- 11-Year-Old's Letter To Officer Describes Bullets, Being Courier

DETROIT - Even veteran Detroit police officers were moved by the starkness and poignancy in 11-year-old Lakisha Lofton's letter describing life with her drug-addicted mother.

Lakisha wrote of ducking bullets fired into their house. She said that her mother gave her drugs to hold if police were nearby, and had her deliver drugs to a dope house. Lakisha and her mother sometimes lived with drug dealers.

Lakisha's letter was written to Officer Edith Barnes, her instructor in a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) class at Bagley Elementary School in Detroit.

Lt. Anthony Datillo, Barnes' supervisor, said the girl's letter speaks about drug abuse ``far more eloquently than social scientists and lectures.''

He said he hopes Lakisha's letter will help other children surrounded by drugs. ``This little girl, there's an innocence that comes through,'' he said. ``Maybe some other kids would see they're not the only ones suffering from this problem.''

Fortunately, life has changed for Lakisha. For the past four years, she has lived with her grandmother, Mildred Greene, 61, her legal guardian. Lakisha said she doesn't want to live with her mother, now 32, fearing the danger and violence associated with drugs.

Lakisha said she loves her mother but pities her, too. And when asked if she's satisfied living with her grandmother, she replied: ``Not really . . . because every child should live with her mother.''

Lakisha is in many ways like other sixth-graders. Happiness means playing Nintendo games, listening to the singer Babyface and occasionally writing in her diary.

Mostly quiet and shy around a reporter, she did offer that her dream is to become a teacher. ``I like helping people,'' she said.

Barnes, who teaches 17-week courses encouraging students to refuse drugs and help them build self-esteem, said that when she read Lakisha's letter, ``I said, `My God, you have a lot to deal with.' I gave her a hug. She said, `Yes, I know.' ''

Lakisha wrote the letter after seeing a film about drugs in the DARE class. The assignment was to write about the film; instead, Lakisha wrote her letter to Barnes.

Lakisha said writing the letter made her feel better. ``I wanted to tell somebody for the longest, and I just wanted to get it out,'' said Lakisha, one of thousands of students taking DARE classes given across Michigan. DARE began as a joint project of police and schools in Los Angeles about seven years ago.

While Lakisha works through her ordeal, her mother remains mired in a 17-year rut of chasing and using drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine. The woman, who talked about her daughter and her drug use on condition that she not be named, said her involvement with drugs started when she was a teen-ager.

``My mother taught me, like, the world was like peaches and cream,'' she said. ``I always had extra money and extra this, and bought my friendship, and tried to be cool, and that was what they were doing to be cool.

``And after a while it wasn't any fun anymore; it was a habit.''

She is a short, slender woman. She said she has sold drugs to support her habit and knows how to survive on the streets.

She's been stabbed, shot and beaten because of drug debts, she said. She said she's been arrested a few times for drug offenses and given probation but no jail time.

She knows she cannot get Lakisha back while in the grips of her drug habit and said she wishes she could get clean. But, she admitted, ``I can't even picture myself giving up dope.''

Toward the end of the interview, she told the reporter: ``The only reason I'm talking to you? Because it might help my baby. And all her life I've (put) it in her head, `Don't use dope.' ''

Lakisha's letter

Here is an edited version of the letter sent to police by 11-year-old Lakisha Lofton:

``I want to talk about something with you, OK? My mother is on drugs. She's been on drugs ever since I was born. She would always use drugs in front of me.

``One day I almost could have gotten killed because I was living on Kentucky with my mother, and some dope dealers shot in our house while I was in the front fixing something to eat. Another time some drug dealers were living with us and they shot up our house but I was saved by the Lord. I thank Him for that, too!!!

``Now Mommy is living on the streets and I live with my Granny. My mother is still using drugs. She stinks, she's skinny and she looks very ugly.

``My mother used to have me hold her dope in my pocket when she saw the police coming after her and then she'd send me to the dope house to drop it off. Everything you think of, she's done it. One day my mother almost got killed also, but I protected her. It was her boyfriend who tried to kill her.

``My mother is lucky today because she's been shot in the arm, she lost a lot of blood; she's been cut in the stomach two times and she's been beat up a lot of times.

``I feel sorry for Mommy and sometimes I don't like Mother, but in the name of Jesus I still love her no matter what.''

Lakisha Lofton