Mother Faces PCP Charge After Son Calls Police

He had counted out 25 pennies and carried them down to the convenience store to get a quarter.

And with the quarter, he called the police.

The 8-year-old Whittier boy had noticed his mother smoking what he called “a funny-smelling cigarette” on Sunday, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said. And when she started gazing off into space and not answering his questions, he got scared and went off to find a phone.

“He called the (Norwalk) station,” Lt. Joe Patterson said, “but he couldn’t describe where he was.”

He tried to spell the name on the street sign--Carmenita--that he could see from the phone booth, but he couldn’t quite manage such a tongue-twister.

So he did as the sheriff’s deputy told him--he hung up and called 911, and “waited right there,” Patterson said.

And within minutes, a sheriff’s car was there to scoop him up.

Within minutes more, the boy had directed deputies back to his home, where deputies say they found his mother “under the influence of PCP,” some PCP-soaked mint leaves in the refrigerator, and the little boy’s 5-year-old sister still in the house.

Diane Mendoza Reyna, 29, was arrested and booked at the Norwalk sheriff’s station on suspicion of child endangering and being under the influence and possession of PCP.

“He saw his mother take out this cigarette and light it,” Patterson said. “Then she started staring out into space. He tried talking to her, and she wouldn’t respond to him. . . . I don’t know if he even knows it was narcotics; he just really became concerned over her welfare.”

It was just before noon that the boy ran down to the convenience market with his pennies, asked for a quarter and said, “I have to call my grandmother,” according to one witness who asked not to be named.

His quarter was evidently spent on the first call to deputies, Patterson said. The 911 call was free.

Both children have been placed with the Department of Public Social Services pending placement in a foster home, deputies said.

A man identified as the father of the children is himself in custody somewhere, Patterson said.