LAPD Officer Deon Joseph patrols one of the toughest places in America: Skid Row, a 50-block concentration of drug dealers, gangs, chronically homeless and the mentally ill ā and the shelters and clinics in downtown Los Angeles that serve them.
"About 2,500 people on probation for violent crimes or narcotics crimes. Registered sex offenders, which can range from 500 to 700 individuals concentrated in here because there are no services anywhere else," Joseph says.
As he talks stats, he interrupts himself to say hi to people on the street ā something that happens regularly as he walks his beat up and down San Pedro Street. "I've been here so long that it's like, they're like family. I spend more time with these folks than my own family," says Joseph, who is married and has three children.
Everyone on these battered sidewalks knows him, too. He's been the senior lead officer here for 17 years.
[For more of this story, written by Kirk Siegler, go to http://www.npr.org/2014/10/14/...w-theres-always-hope]
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