Posted on 07/09/2002 12:48:48 AM PDT by Alan Chapman
Trever Palmer, 17, says he felt nervous and slightly heroic the night he picked up the phone, dialed 911 and informed the King County Sheriff's Office that his father was growing marijuana.
Minutes later, when Aaron Palmer, a Covington computer programmer, returned home from an evening of swimming laps at the local pool, deputies arrested him. They later found more than a dozen marijuana plants growing in a hidden room in the garage and booked the single father of three into the King County Jail on drug charges.
Two months later, as Trever Palmer prepares for his last year of high school, the 140-pound wrestler is still grappling with the consequences of his actions and talked about them in an interview yesterday.
Although police lauded him for doing the right thing, he says half his relatives are mad at him. He's "found out who my friends really are" while trying to avoid Kentwood High School classmates who scorned him, calling him "a weasel" and names much worse than that.
Palmer made the 911 call largely because of a lesson he learned in a Junior ROTC ethics course: "Stand up for what you believe in, don't follow the crowd and be your own person."
He still thinks he did the right thing.
"I felt like I was saving my sister and brother from this guy," he said. "You can only put up with so much."
But his family is torn apart, and his 15-year-old sister may not see the 911 call as such a brave act.
The night her father was taken away, "she really didn't speak much to me," Palmer said. "She was crying and trying to get her stuff together."
Today, she "just kind of avoids me," he said.
Palmer said his 7-year-old brother didn't know what was going on.
Palmer, who is spending part of the summer with his grandparents in Pennsylvania, plans to live with his best friend's family until he graduates and joins the Air Force. His sister and brother are staying with a cousin. Their mother, who is divorced from their father, is unemployed and "doesn't have room for them in her apartment," Palmer said.
Palmer's sister could not be reached last night, and Palmer's father did not return phone calls. Aaron Palmer, 38, was released on $5,000 bail shortly after his arrest and pleaded not guilty last week to a felony charge of drug manufacturing, the South County Journal reported. He faces up to five years in prison.
The boy said many of his relatives can't comprehend his motives for calling police.
"It sucks," Palmer said last night. "I was really hoping that they would understand. It's kind of like that hole in (me) that needs to be filled."
He has tried to explain himself to his father's parents, who "kind of understand, but they are upset."
When he called police, he said, he wasn't considering what would happen to his family. "I kind of figured that would fall into place."
What went through his mind?
"I thought: no guts, no glory," he said.
He thought marijuana growing was taking over his father's life. Instead of spending time doing things with the family, his father tended to his plants -- moving the pots around and watering. He said that on two occasions, people visited the house on account of the marijuana.
Living around drugs is "the part that no kid should have to go through, and I didn't want (my younger brother) to go through it."
There were other conflicts. He thought his father paid attention to his sister's accomplishments, while ignoring his own. And he thought his ROTC courses, which were based on Marine Corps leadership training, put him at odds with his ex-Army father "on different military perspectives."
The "stand-up" message from his ROTC course echoed in his head.
"That set it straight, why I should do it," Palmer said. "For one thing, it's illegal."
He said another factor was the emotions stirred by reading "The Red Badge of Courage" for an English class. He said he was impressed by how a character in the book, a soldier named Nick, discovered his own bravery.
"He stood up for what he believed in," Palmer said.
Not to mention that the act would be a glaring admission of the parent's own pathetic failure at rasining a child.
"Help me, oh government, I can't bear to help myself".
I think these people who say they would "turn their children in" say that because they have not the guts to say, "That's it; your out of my house; here's some money; don't come back unless you change".
Pathetic.
They will if you turn them into the authorities. If your son makes a mistake and gives pot to a friend, he can go to prison and will be anally raped. I hope you don't have to face him.
If my children are worried about going to jail, then they better not break the law.
You are right, they will be better people after they spend a few years in the can. And they will rightfully hate you for the rest of their lives.
My daughter is 7 and knows how I feel about drugs. She already knows I will turn her in if she is caught with them.
Good, she will soon be old enough to hate you before it happens. I'm sure she will have a well adjusted life knowing that her mother will never stand by her if she takes a misstep. I feel so sorry for her.
There is also the option of treatment centers.
You should check in immediately. You need mental treatment.
You would condone your children or parents being active in drugs.
That is a despicable lie.
No child should be forced by fate to have such parents. Makes you want to weep.
IMHO, the kid chose his family, learned his values from them, and when the time came, did what was in their best interest and defended them - and too bad about those people he was living with.
An applaudable stance, I must say.
Now, would you kindly see the other side. Many, many people do not agree with prohibitory drug laws, and can do nothing to change the laws. So, they refuse to compromise their morals and support laws they morally disagree with. Whether their disagreement entails not "turning someone in", vocally opposing all such laws or indulging in the prohibited products themselves, it makes no difference.
There were people who diagreed with "slavery laws", but could do nothing to change the laws. So, they had no slaves, and harbored run away slaves(a violation of the law).
Can you open your eyes and realize that "morality" is not universal, while the violation of rights is. People have many different views on the "morality" of certain laws. You refused to serve alcohol to someone because you felt it was "immoral". Others refused to turn over run away slaves for the same reason. And many, many people refuse to supprot drug prohibition in any form for the same reasons.
Please show where I attacked you. My points on this thread have been addressed to so called parents who abdicate their family responsibilities to the government and advocate turning their family members in to them for not following governmenent edicts. I find people who turn on their families to be despicable.
For every attack/ flame made by one on the side of rights, I can show you at least one by people on the other side.
AMEN!!!! As a former dealer, I totally agree. This guy was taking his children for granted. I think people who commit crimes in front of their children who are past the age of reason deserve everything they get.
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