Deputy Says Drug Talk That Inspired Girl Was ‘Routine’

There were only about 15 junior high school students at the drug-prevention lecture that night, a routine audience on Bruce Stanley’s crime-prevention circuit.

The few questions a handful of youths asked at the Peace Lutheran Church and School gathering Tuesday night were equally typical, recalled Stanley, an Orange County sheriff’s deputy.

Noticeably absent from his memory was any recollection of Deanna Young, who has turned out be one of his biggest success stories.

Deanna, 13, took his anti-drug message seriously. And she took it a step further than even Stanley could have imagined.

She took it home.

As the girl’s parents were being charged with possession of cocaine in a courtroom less than a block away, Stanley marveled Thursday over the incredible--and unexpected--result of his half-hour discussion.

“It was a regular talk--routine,” said Stanley, 38, a member of the Sheriff’s Department’s crime-prevention unit who has been delivering anti-drug lectures for 1 1/2 years.

“But apparently there was something that came out that hit close to home for her. . . .”

The father of a 6-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son, Stanley said he talks to all kinds of community groups but particularly enjoys addressing young people.

“It’s not exactly pride,” he said of his feelings about what Deanna Young had done, “but in crime prevention, very seldom do you get any feedback because you’re not hearing from people who haven’t done something yet. It’s prevention we’re talking about. But it’s good to know people have listened.”

He said he had not heard before reading a newspaper that a member of his audience had turned her parents in to police.

“When I read the story I thought, ‘This sure would be ironic if it was my talk.’ It wasn’t until I started getting inquiries from my department that I learned it was.”

There is no part of his drug-education repertoire that instructs or encourages youths to report their parents’ drug habits to law enforcement authorities, he said.

“What I basically told them,” he said of his Tuesday night lecture, “is that kids have to decide for themselves what is right; they have to set their own values and standards. One thing that, now, seems ironic, is that I told them they have to keep the lines of communication open in the family because a lot of times drug abuse is a result of a communications breakdown. And that there’s a lot of pressure in just growing up.”