"They Hurt the People They're Supposed to Protect"

Mark is troubled not just by the plea bargains, but by the tenor of his dealings with the DA's office. He remembers being questioned by two attorneys from that office, Pete Maguire and Mary Keenan, when he was twelve and living in a treatment facility in Westminster.

"I didn't feel that they were there to help me," he says. "I felt more threatened by [Maguire] than anything else--just his manner. I thought that he was very, very pushy. Things that I was not ready to talk about, I ended up having to talk about."

When the family had lived together, Mark had desperately and continually attempted to protect his brothers and sisters; he spoke to the attorneys out of a sense of responsibility.

But, he says, "I think there were a lot of scares: If you don't do this, we're going to make you testify. That's maybe not how he said it, but it's how it came across. And I testified anyway.

"Sometimes I felt like they were putting words into my mouth and it was like, no, that did not happen. Trying to make things sound worse than they really were. I mean, it wasn't a cakewalk, in general, but you don't need to make it worse," Mark continues.

"I thought they should take their time doing it. Every time they were with me, it was, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. There's no concern. There's no regard. That's the way they want to do it, and that's how they're going to get it done. There's really nobody to supervise them, nobody above them, and they get to do what they want to do.

"It's fine maybe where you're dealing with older people, but when you're dealing with younger people, you ought to have more regard. You need to understand that they're still young, and young people can't handle certain things.

"The thing that sticks out the most is when they wanted me to break it down into incidents, specific things that I could remember. And they were putting it on this big poster board like you get at conference meetings. They got frustrated with me because I was thinking about it and trying to organize, to do my own thing with it, and he couldn't be patient enough to understand what I was trying to do, and he was like, 'You need to help. We need to get this done right now.' I think that's when I had to leave the room.

"Looking back on it now, I think that this was something they really wanted to prosecute, and the people involved are always going to be remembered for this case. So they were trying to do really good and get everything done really quickly, but I think in doing that, they more hurt the people they were supposed to protect."

Although Mark says he found the police detective who questioned him helpful and supportive, he does not remember any encouragement from the DA's office before or after his testimony in court. "Once I got done testifying with them, that was it," he says. "I never saw them again. You share that kind of information with them, you at least expect to hear something from them. The only thing I've heard afterwards was a letter informing me of parole rights and that sort of stuff. It's very cold."

Nonetheless, Mark believes that confronting his mother in the courtroom was helpful. "It was something I just felt I had to do," he says.

Does he expect to see his mother now that she's out of prison? "No," he says. "I have no interest. I'm a completely different person. I have a new life, and that's not part of it." He has finished high school and some college courses, knows his career path and has a job he enjoys.

The baby's grizzles have broken into a full-blown howl. Mark holds her to his chest and offers her the bottle, but she refuses to be comforted. Finally, he darts off to the men's room to change her. When he emerges, she's still howling. People are starting to stare. A little flushed, Mark asks the man at the counter for hot water to warm the bottle and expertly prepares it, one-handed. He offers the baby the nipple. She seems about to refuse, then takes it mid-cry. Her crinkled face smooths out. Her dark eyes fasten on his face. He watches until they droop shut, then puts her tenderly back in the carrier.

"This is her favorite blanket," he says, adjusting it. "She just rubs it against her cheek and falls asleep."

--Wittman