The liberals shut down all of the custodial mental institutions in the early seventies. Community mental health facilities ran 9-5, weekends off. According to liberal thought mental illness and an inability to care for oneself. Is NOT manifested by eating garbage out of trash cans and dumpsters, smelling like a walking garbage dump, shitting wherever with less discretion than your average German Shepard and a refusal to follow a course of treatment recommended by a physician. However, liberals maintain, that same homeless wacko is incapable of deciding to accept a Big Mac, strawberry shake and ride in a patrol car. Deputy-dropping-off-apparent-homeless-man-in-San-Pedro/

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, every fall we would find a steady stream of homeless heading south for the winter. They weren’t all drooling on themselves crazy, but none of them were a poster boy for mental health.

I ran across one guy at about 1 am standing under the City limits sign, on the side of IH 35. I knew he was likely to be there because the flash of headlights and taillights on the center median told me somebody driving a blue and white Austin patrol car had crossed.

I contacted the guy and when I asked him where he was from and where he was now; I got the same answer. The side of the road. State, county, city unknown and of no consequence. He was friendly enough and within his limited abilities was willing to answer questions. As long as inquiries didn’t include, date of birth, age, place of birth, where from where going, occupation. He was unfamiliar with the term “hitchhiking” and didn’t possess the skills to do so. His modus operandi was to stand on the side of the road eventually one of three things was likely to happen: (1) He got a ride. (2) He got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or (3) He got a ride and a sandwich. He got the ride. I loaded him up and pointed that patrol car North to Austin twenty-five miles away. Mission accomplished, I turned south and headed for San Marcos.

I was ten minutes into my trip, at a steady eighty miles an hour when my patrol car was rocked and the doors damn near sucked off by a brown and white streak. I caught a glimpse of my former passenger in the back seat of a Travis County Sheriff Patrol car. The deputy was nice enough to drop my wacko off at the only open business in town.

I watched as another city unit picked him up and headed south to New Braunfels. New Braunfels had no better resources to help the wackos than we did. But they were the same distance away from San Antonio as we were from Austin. They weren’ t the least bit shy in making the trip.

I guess if you are liberal scum, five police agencies failed to meet the needs of this homeless wacko. Just for grins and giggles what were we supposed to provide? I would say it took the combined resources of five police agencies working in concert to ensure the wacko’s introduction into a system that might be able to meet his needs.