Death, Drugs, And Walter

a little boy is be grave in this his name was W vmir and he was 12 he lived in Harlem and he died in Harlem because he took a needle and put too much heroin into his arm he wasn't the first child to do this and he won't be the last but the youngest on the records of New York City to die of an overdose of drugs Walter was a handsome boy in this school picture taken when he was about 10 life in the ghetto had made him tough and hard but it didn't show on his face he had been taking heroin for more than a year when this picture was made last summer at a block party on West 117th Street he looked strong and healthy and happy but only 4 months later on December 19th 2 weeks after they found Walter dead in the second floor common bathroom of a tenement on West 117th Street the medical examiner said he died of an overdose of heroin he was wearing a Snoopy sweatshirt stamped with the words I wish I could bite somebody I need to relieve my inner tensions Walter was born at Harlem Hospital on December 1st 1957 his father who was from the Dutch West Indies had jumped ship in New York and when Walter was 6 months old was found by immigration authorities and deported and so Walter grew up without a father in a neighborhood where drug addiction was a way of life West 117th Street between 8th and Manhattan Avenues a neighborhood where junkies can be seen on any corner where drugs are sold openly where the paraphernalia of addiction can be found on The Landings of almost every tenement house his mother Mrs Lillian price said on the day after Walter's death that she did not know her son was using drugs she had come to Harlem from Charleston South Carolina in 1947 within a year she was on welfare and has been since besides Walter she has nine other children my son be out here in the street selling papers for his own fit for what he see fit to do with his own money and that other people out here have children they should stop the drug addicts or whoever given to them the grown-ups around here that giv each children drugs in September of 1964 Walter started the school at ps76 he was absent often and his teachers soon noticed he was a behavior problem he would go to sleep in class or if his teachers tried to make him stay awake he would become aggressive when he was in the third grade at the age of nine he was suspended from ps76 without ever Having learned to read beyond the first grade level although a teacher said he was intelligent Walter's best friend 13-year-old Romero Brown talked about the days when Walter went to ps76 one time went to a birthday party on 10 Street we stayed there about to 3:00 in the morning what happened at the par was just dancing drinking water got in the fight why because a guy kept trying to you know overrule him following his suspension from ps76 the school's Bureau of Child Guidance referred Walter's case to the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children the society brought the case here to Family Court his mother asked the court to remove him from her custody because she said he had bad influences at home the court sent Walter along with his younger brother Tony to the society's Children's Shelter in Queens after a short stay in Queens Walter was transferred to the Children's Shelter on East 104th Street in Manhattan where he lived for almost 5 months until August of 1967 then for reasons which are unclear another branch of Family Court released Walter to his mother's care this meant Walter was back on the streets and not in school he was assigned to PS 148 a school for Disturbed and socially maladjusted children but he was absent more often than not during this period he spent a lot of time with his godmother Mrs Barbara Banks she wanted to let Walter live with her and her children but she did not have room in her small and crowded apartment water to me he was a nice little boy I was crazy about him I wanted to keep him here with me but I couldn't because I didn't have enough room I have five children of my own I couldn't keep him here did you know he's been here from time to time I've taken him in I've bathed him I've bought him little things I would have liked to have kept him but I couldn't I've known him from the day he was born then I guess I took more of an interest in him because you know a person you you try to help them out I'm just sorry that I wasn't able to do more to help him after 8 months of roaming the streets Family Court finally sent Walter to The Wil twick schools Floyd Patterson house in Manhattan a residential treatment center for Disturbed children Walter was here for 2 months and made friends with his new counselor John schunck who is now a reporter for Time Magazine he's a very very disturbed child um one of the the most difficult to understand and work with u that I've known at wiwik of many many children um he often got into rages that were just uncontrollable and uh they were the kind a lot of the children U get into such rages and sometimes it's a u uh sort of an Institutional game they play kind of power struggling with the adults in the institution with Walter often it started out that way but it just went out of control and uh at such times we were really at a loss as to what to do for him Walter made progress at Patterson house and for the first time in his life he went to school regularly at PS 146 but it was a short interlude his assignment here at Patterson house was only temporary until room could be found for him at the main campus of witwi school in Westchester County the witwi school has more staff members than it has students and it boasts of 24-hour care for its children but in spite of This Walter managed to run away four times silot Walter ran away from witwi and yet you have 24-hour supervision on the on the children here I understand of course that you were not director at the time but how is it possible for a boy to run away from this school this is an open facility um all the Cottages are open boys can can move freely around um and boys run for a number of reasons uh this is a pretty uh distant place in the city there isn't the comfortable noise of the tra traffic and the people moving around and that can be scary for a boy when he first comes to wilck and if a boy is inclined to to to run from problems he may run he may run uh when he's scared this brochure about wilck says the school accepts only those children who are most deeply troubled those whose problems are so severe that no other agency can or will accept them but wilck gave up on Walter vmir Walter was on the streets again hanging around a bar on 8th Avenue occasionally picking up a little money carrying packages at the ebony Market but mostly on the streets becoming a heroin addict Gabe prman talked with a friend of Walters a 17-year-old boy who is now receiving treatment for heroin addiction at Odyssey House were you surprised when you heard he had died B shock me like then you know then I said I knew going to come sooner or later cuz he like was greedy take too much what do you mean take too much heroin yeah how how was that they would take more than you know he can shoot like for instance what do you mean like shoot about the some like he can get shooting two bag he like to shoot five it's 54 he shot more than other kids yes cuz mainly he's like he's you used to talk me to like we get money like I used want to spend part of the money on on having he want to spend all of it on it why would he why would why would he want to shoot more than two I mean if you were satisfied with two why would he want to shoot five backs ironically a warrant had been scheduled to bring Walter and his mother back here to family court on December 19th 4 days after his death John schunck recalls the last time he saw Walter I saw Walter um I was getting ready to leave on a trip and uh Walter came down to my house and told me that he was having trouble at home his mother wanted him to stay with a friend of hers and he didn't want to and he didn't know quite what to do do and he really looked very bad his his clothes were ripped and he was dirty and he looked hungry he said he hadn't eaten for a while and he wanted to go back to Patterson house and it was impossible I wasn't working there uh the beds at Patterson house were filled um and I tried to convince him to go to wil twick which he wouldn't do he wouldn't go back there and then I tried to convince him to try talking to his mother again directly about the problem you know rather than fighting with her about it and he said he would try then he left and he called up later on and said that he thought things were going to work out uh with his mother and that he could stay there and uh then he asked me if he could go on the trip with me and I said no what do you think he was looking for somebody he could depend on um some way to know what tomorrow would is going to bring um Somebody to Love and someone who loved him he needed someone to just to take him in and to love him to treat him good take care of him all babies need somebody to take him kiss him once in a while Pat him on his head take care of him bathe him clean him look after and that he didn't get for