Monday, November 22, 2004
Boy Who's Endured Tragedy Could Use Our Help
Seattle police officer Michael McDonald had no choice but to shoot down a convicted rapist and level three sex offender named Lawrence Owens outside a temporary Red Cross homeless shelter last March.
The guy had just murdered Dori Cordova with three shotgun blasts before the horrified eyes of a family support worker and other shelter residents displaced by a fire.
Even as the spent shells still rolled on the pavement near Cordova's body, Owens was trying to reload. ...
Capable and personable but broke and out of work, [Dori Cordova] had been forced to settle for transitional housing for herself and her 10-year-old son at the Jensonia Hotel -- more a snake pit than a haven when it comes to a place to raise kids.
That's where she met Owens, not knowing that he was a man who hid a horrific record of abusing, raping and threatening to kill other women. Cordova was desperately trying to get away from the guy when a fire forced Jensonia dwellers to camp at the Miller Community Center, where Owens tracked her down.
... The YWCA, which unwittingly employed Owens as a custodian at another shelter for vulnerable women...
By all accounts [Dori Cordova's son Troy is] a special kid -- smart and studious, kind, a chess club standout, and a real leader in his fifth-grade class ...
Somehow he's managed to be all that despite living in a situation of uncertainty and fear. "He's a very sensitive kid. He and his mom were very close and he was worried about her (long before the shooting)," [school counselor Jamshid] Khajavi said.
"He's doing a fantastic job in school," Khajavi said. "He cries sometimes when he talks about his mom. But I wish a lot of adults could handle trauma as well as he does."
Seattle police officer Michael McDonald had no choice but to shoot down a convicted rapist and level three sex offender named Lawrence Owens outside a temporary Red Cross homeless shelter last March.
The guy had just murdered Dori Cordova with three shotgun blasts before the horrified eyes of a family support worker and other shelter residents displaced by a fire.
Even as the spent shells still rolled on the pavement near Cordova's body, Owens was trying to reload. ...
Capable and personable but broke and out of work, [Dori Cordova] had been forced to settle for transitional housing for herself and her 10-year-old son at the Jensonia Hotel -- more a snake pit than a haven when it comes to a place to raise kids.
That's where she met Owens, not knowing that he was a man who hid a horrific record of abusing, raping and threatening to kill other women. Cordova was desperately trying to get away from the guy when a fire forced Jensonia dwellers to camp at the Miller Community Center, where Owens tracked her down.
... The YWCA, which unwittingly employed Owens as a custodian at another shelter for vulnerable women...
By all accounts [Dori Cordova's son Troy is] a special kid -- smart and studious, kind, a chess club standout, and a real leader in his fifth-grade class ...
Somehow he's managed to be all that despite living in a situation of uncertainty and fear. "He's a very sensitive kid. He and his mom were very close and he was worried about her (long before the shooting)," [school counselor Jamshid] Khajavi said.
"He's doing a fantastic job in school," Khajavi said. "He cries sometimes when he talks about his mom. But I wish a lot of adults could handle trauma as well as he does."
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