No Place For Timmy -- Enraged 8-Year-Old Threatens Mother With A Knife

RENTON - This is a story about a child's rage. It is the story of 8-year-old Timmy, who two weekends ago allegedly went after his mother with a paring knife, threatening to kill her.

It is also the story of a social-service system that doesn't know what to do with Timmy and with the growing number of children like him.

The night Timmy reportedly attacked his mother, a Renton police officer spent nearly five hours looking for a foster home, a shelter, a detention center or a hospital that would take him. In the end, the child was returned to his mother. Timmy's real name is not being used.

``There's no place for these kids to go,'' said Tom Rembiesa, executive director of the Ruth Dykeman Children's Center in Burien. ``The entire system is on the verge of simply collapsing.'' Ruth Dykeman's eight-bed crisis center is the only one in the county for children 11 and younger.

Children are becoming increasingly violent at a younger age, according to juvenile authorities. Among the Ruth Dykeman center's recent residents: a 10-year-old boy who tried to drown a friend; an 11-year-old girl who ties people up at night, saying she wants to kill them; and a 9-year-old boy who steals and stashes away an assortment of knives. Abuse is either known or suspected in those cases, as well as in Timmy's.

Yet, violent children often turn gentle in a loving environment, said Cindy Goodwin, a program director at the center. The

trouble is, she said, the resources are so woefully inadequate, many children aren't being helped.

Authorities estimate hundreds of Washington children with serious behavior problems need help but aren't getting it. And by the time children reach adolescence, it's too late.

Family friends say they hope it's not too late for Timmy. They describe him as a shy, polite child who likes to play softball, soccer and basketball. He's a bit over 4 feet tall, with deep brown eyes and a gap-toothed smile. Slightly stocky, he is just beginning to outgrow his baby fat.

He lives with his mother, a personnel manager, in a middle-class Renton neighborhood. He attends a private school. Renton police are investigating allegations that a male acquaintance of the mother recently beat the boy with a stick over much of his

body.

On June 9, a Saturday, Timmy was staying with his mother's friends while she attended a wedding. According to police reports, this is what happened when it was time for Timmy to go home:

Timmy refused to leave, but the mother finally talked him into the car. Timmy refused to get out of the car when they arrived home. When his mother finally coaxed him inside, he was angry. He threw plants. He ripped out the telephone and threw it against the wall. He threw peanuts.

Then he got a paring knife from a kitchen drawer. He walked up to his mother, pointed the knife at her and said, ``Now I can really kill you.'' Then he backed down, saying next time he would get a butcher knife and ``do it right.''

His mother turned on the television to a comedy show for Timmy, hoping he would calm down. Then she began to vacuum up the peanuts and told her son he needed to take a bath or shower by 9 p.m.

Nine o'clock came and went. No bath. No shower. Timmy's mother dragged him into the bathroom, where he picked up a hand-held mirror and threw it at her. He missed.

Just as she was plugging in the vacuum to clean up the glass, Timmy picked up the vacuum and threw it at her. Then he put on a coat and hat, went into the kitchen and got the paring knife again. He told his mother that if he stabbed her in the forehead, that would kill her. Over and over he yelled at her to call the police.

Finally, she did.

Officer Tracy Merrill arrived to find Timmy sitting in the living room, watching television. His mother had locked herself in the bathroom. Timmy's mother said she couldn't trust her son and felt she was in danger.

Under state law, a child under 8 is not considered capable of committing a crime. Children 8 through 11 can be charged, but first must face a hearing to determine whether they understand the difference between right and wrong.

Merrill called the state's Child Protective Services (CPS) and tried to arrange for Timmy to go to a foster home. Timmy didn't want to leave. Merrill pulled him out of the house cursing and screaming. He scratched Merrill on the nose and cheek.

Once in the back of the patrol car, Timmy began kicking and hitting the plexiglass shield that separates the front and back seat. He told Merrill that his mother would get a gun and shoot Merrill.

``I was stunned at the violence he was demonstrating,'' Merrill said in his report.

Timmy grew quiet, began sucking his thumb and looking out the window. Then he began

yelling again. Merrill took him into the Renton police station and called CPS again to see if he would be accepted.

The answer was no. According to Gabe Patterson, a CPS supervisor, violent children are not placed in foster care. Merrill looked for alternatives.

The King County Youth Services Center would not accept Timmy. According to Teresa Revelle, a spokeswoman for the Youth Services Department, the detention facility generally does not take children under age 12 - the age, under Washington law, that youngsters generally can be charged with a crime. Occasionally, the facility might take an 11-year-old, she said.

``Obviously these kids need to be taken out of the home, but there's no place for them,'' Revelle said.

Merrill called three area hospitals, but they wouldn't take Timmy in for psychiatric evaluation because of his age and because of a shortage of beds. Under state law, a parent or guardian's permission is required to admit a child age 12 or under.

``It came to the point that I again called the mother,'' Merrill said in his report. Timmy's mother agreed to meet them at Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle. Timmy was examined by a psychologist, then released to his mother, according to hospital spokesman Dean Forbes. Forbes would not say why the boy was released. Timmy's mother has refused an interview with a reporter.

Earlier this month, a friend of the family told police she believed Timmy was being abused. Officer Merrill investigated the accusation, then informed Child Protective Services.

According to Merrill's report, the mother at first did not want the officer to see her son. When Merrill found Timmy, the child was in bed, hiding his hand, which was bruised and scratched. He also had bruises on his thighs, upper arms, lower back and on his shins.

Timmy's mother said a male friend had hit the child with ``some sort of stick.'' The stick, judging by the abrasions, would have to be from 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide, according to Merrill.

Child Protection Services would not comment on the case.

Some family friends said they're worried what Timmy will do the next time he becomes angry about his abuse. ``I think he's crying out for help; it's so clear that he's being driven to this,'' said one friend from Seattle. ``His whole world has turned upside down, and he has no one on his side.''

Another longtime friend of Timmy's mother and a counselor at a home for developmentally delayed adults is also concerned.

``This is a good kid, a really good kid,'' she said. ``But he's freaked out, enraged and befuddled. Why isn't he being protected?''

The longer a child remains in an unstable environment, the greater the chance for permanent damage to his mental well-being, experts say. When a child is abused, he gets angry and does the same thing that was done to him. ``You're not born violent. You're taught to love or you're taught to hate,'' Goodwin said.

Violent children, she said, need what all children need: a stable, loving environment. They need someone to build their self-confidence, someone who allows them to express their feelings freely, and allows them to be angry.

Goodwin has seen violent children in her center be funny, loving and endearing. Ideally, she said, parents should receive counseling and families should be kept together.

Yet, that doesn't always work. In the past five years, only three children from the center have been reunited with their families. Because of alcohol or drug abuse, or other problems, most of the families did not respond well to counseling, Goodwin said.

If authorities decide Timmy should be removed from his home, where would he go?

The eight-bed Burien crisis facility has a waiting list. The county's only other crisis facility for children with serious behavior problems is a 15-bed YMCA group home in Seattle for children age 12 or older. That, too, has several children waiting to get in.

The shortage of long-term care is even more pronounced. Countywide, 55 children with problems are waiting for intensive residential treatment, according to juvenile authorities.

Statewide, there are 327 long-term beds for these children, compared with 1,800 a decade ago.

The loss is the result of budget cuts, among other factors.

The Children's Home Society, for instance, lost a third of its long-term beds last year at its Cobb Center for boys in Northeast Seattle. The center now has 16 beds.

Crisis care is intended to provide shelter for three to 10 days, but youngsters often stay as long as a year due to the shortage of long-term facilities that provide treatment to children and their families, Goodwin said.

``It's so sad,'' she said. ``If we could just get these kids when they're young enough, we could salvage them. But by the time they reach adolescence, they trust no one. And we've lost another child.''

As for Timmy, the future is uncertain.

``He's at the breaking point, and there's no one in the world to help him,'' said one of the family friends.