Patrice K. Marriott, 40, the son of Baltimore City Deputy Mayor Salima Siler Marriott, recently was indicted on federal gun charges after Baltimore City police said they found drug paraphernalia and a .44 revolver under the seat of a car he was driving.
Marriott, who heads the city?s community and human development programs, sat down with The Examiner to discuss her son?s case.
Before becoming deputy mayor last year, Marriott served as a state delegate for 16 years and was the chairwoman of the Baltimore City delegation.
Q: Is there anything you?d like to say about Patrice?s case?
A: My son is not different from a lot of sons in Baltimore. My son is an addict. He is a victim of addiction. He?s the third generation of addicts on one side of the family and the second generation on the other side of the family.
It?s much more serious on my side of the family. My father, my brothers and my son have all been addicts. All of my father?s brothers had alcohol addiction. My brothers had a different drug of choice, heroin.
I have two brothers, one died, and I have another brother who is 65 years old and incarcerated, because of the issues around his addiction.
When they?re chasing drugs to get the high, it makes for much more irrational behavior than when they?re actually high.
Q: How have your son?s troubles influenced your leadership in Baltimore City?
A: My children are the center of my life. I have a daughter who is turning 47, and she is the absolute American dream. That affected him as well. My daughter was a CPA before she was 21.
He finally got his degree, graduated with honors, but by then he was 27 years old. You can?t enter corporate at 27, black, 250 pounds, 6-foot-4.
They just don?t have no black people up in there like that.
Q: Patrice graduated summa cum laude from Morris Brown College in Atlanta, didn?t he?
A: Yes, he was so happy about graduating. He did it. He worked for a nonprofit, and they hired him. But his addiction caught up with him.
He got himself in a whole lot of trouble. He was clean for three years during his education.
But when he was not able to match the expectations of his sister, he relapsed.
He was working for a little more than minimum wage with his brand new B.S. degree with honors, and then he?s looking at his sister with a huge office.
Q: Patrice was incarcerated previously and arrested several times. How difficult was it for him to find a job after he got out?
A: When he was in Atlanta, he could not get a job. He was able to get a laborer type job in Baltimore.
I was pretty hard on him, but then I did see he really was trying to look for work. He went to Prince George?s County for a job interview, but when they found out he had a record, they turned him away.
Q: Have you ever tried to intervene in any of Patrice?s criminal cases?
A: No, I don?t even go to court. I have gone to court for other people and other family members a lot of times, but not for Patrice. I did when he was in Atlanta, but not up here.
The only thing I did was go to court and pick up his clothes when he was being transferred to a federal detention center. … The charges he has are connected to the choices that he makes.
He?s got to pay the consequences for his behavior. He understands that. ?I was a fool, 40 years old,? he told me.
Q: Even with a successful and involved mother like you, how difficult is it for a kid growing up in the rough parts of Baltimore to stay away from drugs?
A: With him living in Park Heights, it probably exposed him to a more ?advanced? drug culture than he would have if he lived some place else.
Q: Was Patrice a drug dealer or just a user?
A: It?s a hard distinction to make sometimes, but, yes, he was charged with drug dealing in the past. In Baltimore, he understood there was a high level of danger to get involved with actually dealing.
There is evidence in his record in Atlanta that his crimes transcend just his need to feed his habit. I don?t think that?s where he was at this point in his life. He was living in my home most of the time.
There?s no violence in his past. But that gun. To the guys in the street, the gun is like a badge. It?s almost like a vest to protect them. The gun that was in the car didn?t have any bullets in it.
Q: Drugs have cost your family so much. What are you feeling emotionally as you see them drag down your son like so many others?
A: It?s harder with Patrice, because he had a whole lot of opportunities that my father did not have. I remember one time we had a discussion about a Dunbar basketball player who had gotten in trouble.
I was complaining about him, and Patrice said, ?Mom, you have to give people credit for just getting out of the ghetto. Every day I walk out this door, I have to think about whether I?m going to go left or right, whether I?m going to do wrong or good.?
That?s what he?s confronted with. Another thing he struggled with is the perception of the guys in the community about who he was. He wanted to be Park Heights Boy.
I was trying to get him to go to a military academy. He said, ?If you send me to a military academy, you and the people at the academy are going to be sorry.?
Q: Federal gun statues carry long prison sentences with no chance of parole, and very little time off for good behavior. Are you worried that if your son is convicted of these latest charges, you?ll never see him as a free man again?
A: That?s the consequences of his behavior. Of course, if you love your child, you don?t want him to spend the rest of his life in prison. But there?s nothing I can really do.
Q: What are you, the mayor and other city officials doing to help people like your son with drug addictions.
A: I?m working on Project PEACE in Park Heights, which involves reentry, but also involves the larger issues, such a socialization work with the people out there who have the potential of committing crimes.
I?m very big on re-entry. I?m very big on family strengthening. I understand that these individuals who are released from prison are not ready for life again.
So you have to structure a system around them, so that they can be successful. Too many people see reentry as just giving someone a job.
Yes, give them a job, but if you?re not dealing with that basic way they look at life, you?re not going to be successful.
