A Man’s Downward Spiral to Destruction

First, James Parker hid the car keys so his son wouldn’t drink and drive. Then he hid the guns so the troubled young man with the insatiable hunger for cocaine wouldn’t shoot himself or anyone else.

When the violence escalated and Parker could control his son no longer, he came to court in late 1994 and told a judge that he wanted what was best for the young man--even if that meant a long state prison term.

“Terry needs serious help,” Parker told authorities, according to court records. Even the son acknowledged that “drugs have fried my brains.”

And so Terry James Parker was sentenced to prison Oct. 17, 1994--one year after he was arrested for cocaine possession and driving with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, six months after he was shot by police while leading them on a high-speed chase, and three months after he brandished a gun at his father and fired shots inside his home during a standoff with police.

In retrospect, Terry Parker’s state prison sentence--44 months, of which he served 20--barely interrupted his downward spiral. In the end, it seemed, only a bullet could stop Parker’s hellbent mission of self-destruction.

Parker’s is the story of a man whose problems were staggering, and yet so commonplace that he barely made an impression during his repeated contacts with the courts in Los Angeles. Interviews last week with prosecutors, defense attorneys, police, prison officials and mental health experts revealed that all the cogs of the criminal justice system worked as they were supposed to in the Parker case.

Still, early Wednesday, Parker, 25, used a gun his father had wrapped in a rag and hidden in the console of his black Chevrolet Mirage pickup to shoot California Highway Patrol Officer Rafael “Ralph” Casillas, who had been trying to stop him for speeding on the San Diego Freeway.

Later, pursued by police, Parker placed the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, an autopsy revealed. Seconds afterward came a hail of police bullets.

It was a replay of the two 1994 events that had sent Parker to prison. As with all his crimes, drugs and alcohol had very probably played a central role.

A ninth-grade dropout and occasional bricklayer, Terry Parker for years trolled the San Fernando Valley’s most notorious drug corners, feeding an $80-a-day rock cocaine habit.

It was on one of those corners that police spotted him April 19, 1994, and gave chase. As in last Wednesday’s incident, he led police toward his home. During the earlier chase, police shot him in the chest and thigh.

Three months later, still carrying two police bullets in his body, Parker brandished a gun at his father, fired shots into a table and dialed 911. When police arrived, he tried to coax them into killing him, according to court records. Later, he said he had wanted to kill himself but couldn’t. According to a probation report, he said he had hoped police would “finish the job” they started in April.

Lawyer Wayne Little, the former prosecutor who handled the plea bargain that sent Parker to prison, said there were problems with the case. Because some of the officers had violated their own procedures, a review concluded, Little did not believe he could prove the most serious crime--that Parker tried to run down an officer with his truck.

Still, Parker received nearly the maximum sentence on the remaining charges--his first felony convictions.

“This guy had some real serious problems,” Little said. “Unfortunately, the system has become more of a caretaker. If this guy didn’t get some treatment or help, this is the kind of stuff that happens. Unfortunately, our system isn’t designed to get people off drugs and alcohol. It’s designed to get them off the streets.”

The sentencing judge, Charles Peven, did recommend that Parker receive psychiatric treatment and drug and alcohol counseling while in prison, 1994 court records show. Although the prosecutor, defense attorney, probation officer and judge all agreed that treatment was called for, there was little they could do.

“Really, once we say the magic words [that] they are going to state prison, the Department of Corrections decides where to put them and what to do with them,” Peven said.

The only way a judge can ensure that a defendant receives psychiatric help or enrolls in a substance abuse program is to put him on probation. Because Parker’s escalating criminal actions placed others in danger, probation was not a viable option, all involved in the case agreed.

Corrections officials said Parker met with a psychiatrist just once while incarcerated at Solano State Prison. He did not attend a single Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

But there is little anyone can do, they said, to help someone who doesn’t want to help himself.

According to court records and interviews, Terry Parker began abusing alcohol when he was 8. He was using rock cocaine by age 13. His juvenile record shows he was placed on probation for offenses that included bringing marijuana and drug paraphernalia onto school grounds, unauthorized use of a vehicle and reckless driving.

He was convicted three times between 1989 and 1993 of driving under the influence of alcohol. When unable to comply even with the relatively simple terms of his probation, he returned to County Jail for stints of up to 90 days.

He failed to show up for court-ordered AA meetings. He dropped out of a drug diversion program after he was arrested again for drunk driving. And he rarely appeared in court when ordered.

“The system didn’t fail him. He failed to take advantage of the system,” said Stephen L. Cooley, head deputy of the district attorney’s San Fernando branch, where all of Parker’s crimes were handled.

“He failed, and now he’s dead, and a good police officer almost died.”

Parker’s inability to follow the terms of his probation and his escalating violence were predictable given his underlying mental illness, according to William D. Vicary, a forensic psychiatrist who examined Parker for his defense attorneys in 1994.

Vicary said the drug and alcohol abuse probably were Parker’s attempts at “self-medication” for his bipolar disorder--once commonly known as manic depression. The disorder is characterized by unpredictable mood swings, as well as suicidal or dangerous behavior during the acutely manic phases. It is treatable with drugs.

After the armed standoff with police in July 1994, Parker behaved erratically and said he heard voices while in jail, according to court records.

Twice in the weeks after his arrest, a Municipal Court judge ordered that he be examined by a psychiatrist. “I believe that was probably the first time he was diagnosed and treated,” Vicary said.

While in custody, Parker seemed to stabilize with daily doses of lithium and an antipsychotic medication to ease his paranoia.

Ten days after he entered Solano on Nov. 18, 1994, he was again examined by a psychiatrist. He was given two psychotropic drugs--an antidepressant and a mood stabilizer, corrections officials said.

He remained on the drugs throughout his 20-month prison term. But he received no other psychiatric counseling, officials said, adding that such a decision is left to the psychiatrist and made on a case-by-case basis.

Parker apparently stopped taking his medication the day he was released from state prison. He received no follow-up psychiatric care.

“If you have a problem,” said Kaushal Sharma, a professor of psychiatry at USC, “the day you get out you’re going to get high, you’re going to party.”

Sure enough, James Parker said, his son began drinking again, “and kind of went crazy.”

Terry Parker told his father he believed authorities were conspiring against him to prevent a planned move to Arizona.

The elder Parker said he had forgotten the gun was in the truck.

“I carry it because I go between here and Arizona and carry it for protection. I had hidden it in the truck,” he said.

Under the best circumstances, Vicary said, the younger Parker would have been referred to a halfway house and stabilized. But that occurs only rarely, he said.

“When he got out, there wasn’t anything nearly like that done for him,” Vicary said. “He relapsed. He began to have symptoms again. He began to self-medicate and--whammo!--it only took 28 days. There was a missed opportunity when he was released from prison.”

Nonetheless, Vicary said, “his prognosis may have been very poor no matter what anybody did. They go over the edge, and it’s like they’re on a mission.”

Times staff writer Timothy Williams and correspondent Darrell Satzman contributed to this story.