Savage Son. Corey Mitchell
just as it felt good to steal the items and get away with it. But something was missing. It just did not seem dangerous enough. Whatever the reason was for his committing the thefts, there was something deeper rooted in Bart that propelled him toward his next criminal endeavor.
The game plan remained the same; it was the location that changed. Bart wanted to make it a little dicier this time. He decided they would burglarize Lakeview Elementary School, where his mother taught school, and was much beloved by student and staff alike.
Near the end of July, at approximately 1:00 A.M., the three boys made the trip to the school. For whatever reason, either cockiness or boredom, they did not plan things out as they had at Clements High School. They simply drove up to the school, located an unlocked window, and crawled inside.
Bart played point man, keeping an eye out for police, while his two pals scoped out the goodies there for the taking. The other two boys made their way through the school with their tiny X-Files-like pen-lights, located an ideal computer and printer, and hauled them out to Bart’s navy blue Ford Explorer. The boys hopped into Bart’s vehicle and drove off to one friend’s house, where they hid the stolen items.
But they were not done for the night.
They continued their criminal crawl at the Highlands Elementary School, located less than two miles from Bart’s home in Sugar Land. Again they made no preparations, but rather simply entered the school’s premises through an open janitor’s gate and scaled a plastic pipe to clamber over the school wall. Once inside the perimeter, they resumed their usual roles. Bart played lookout, while the other two boys found a way into the building by prying open a roof hatch. Once inside, the two wormed their way throughout the school, looking for more loot. When Bart was certain that his friends were safely inside, he followed. The three boys joined up and looked around for the front office. Once again, one of the friends scaled yet another gate to get into the office. Once inside, he spotted two computers, which he took. Bart then ran outside and back to his Explorer and paged the two other boys when all seemed clear. The two friends on the inside hauled the computers out of the building, placed them in the back of Bart’s SUV, and they sped out of the area.
The boys were not done yet. A few days later, they decided to hit another school. It was Commonwealth Elementary, located on Commonwealth Boulevard, less than six miles from Bart’s home. For this excursion, one of the boys climbed on top of the roof of the school, but he could not find a way inside. He jumped back down and told the other guys about the situation. They chose to head straight for the front door of the school and break open a padlock with a crowbar to gain entrance.
This time, the boys stole three computers and took off.
The following day, Bart took the stolen goods to a nearby Public Storage, where they had rented a storage unit on July 15.
When asked why he participated in so much criminal activity, Bart would simply answer, “I did this for adventure.”
Needless to say, several people were not happy about his adventures. The first was the staff at Clements High School. When Bart was discovered to have participated in two burglaries at their school, they took swift and immediate action by expelling him.
The other people who were not happy were, of course, his parents. Bart’s mother, Tricia, seemed to take her oldest son’s actions very hard, especially since Bart had committed one of his thefts at her place of employment. Tricia seemed devastated by her son’s inability to make the right choice; she practically went into hiding. Afraid that she would go out into public and be ridiculed by her friends, Tricia uprooted many of her normal routines. She stopped shopping at her usual grocery store, because she did not want to face her friends and be supremely embarrassed. She even convinced the family to switch churches so as to avoid any more uncomfortable situations.
After Bart’s arrest, his parents sought out help in the form of a psychologist, Dr. Brendan O’Rourke, a licensed doctor since 1982 after she had received her master’s degree from the University of Houston graduate school. O’Rourke had worked as a high-school counselor after college, and before beginning her work as a psychologist. She was uniquely equipped to deal with the adolescent mind, and the trials and tribulations experienced by teenagers.
Kent and Tricia Whitaker had been referred to Dr. O’Rourke through a mutual friend. They hoped the doctor would be able to conduct sessions with Bart, determine what his problem was, and assess that he would be well enough to return back to Clements High School. They were looking for a letter of reinstatement for their son from Dr. O’Rourke so he could complete his senior year of high school at Clements.
Unfortunately for the Whitakers, Bart’s meeting with Dr. O’Rourke did not turn out as they had hoped. The doctor spoke with Bart about his bad behavior and how he felt about what he had done. The doctor also conducted a Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory test on Bart to help her come up with an assessment of the young man. The test is “ideal for use with individuals being evaluated for emotional, behavioral, or interpersonal difficulties.”
After meeting with Bart ten times, Dr. O’Rourke’s conclusions were definitive and damning simultaneously. My impression, Dr. O’Rourke laid out clearly, is the court system will impose adequate consequences to punish Bart and to bring about a self correction. In other words, she did not recommend that Bart return to school, but rather doing a little time in jail would do him the most good.
Needless to say, the Whitakers were not happy with the initial diagnosis.
O’Rourke further detailed her position on Bart’s mental disposition. She described Bart as an egocentric man who has an inflated sense of self-importance, combined with an intense mistrust of others. She added, He has a disputatious demeanor that invariably invokes exasperation and animosity in friends, relatives and co-workers. O’Rourke admitted that many of these traits are fairly common among teenagers, but Bart seemed to transcend most of the Breakfast Club clichés of teenagerdom.
His guiding principle is that of outwitting others, O’Rourke’s test results continued, exerting power over them before they can exploit him. Apparently, many of Bart’s interactions with his peers, his teachers, and his own family were a sort of competition, a test of wills to see if Bart would come out on top and not be bested by those around him.
Another portion of the test revealed that Bart may embellish trivial achievements despite the contradictions of others and added that he was easily provoked. Even more damning, he may express sudden and unanticipated brutality. So, to add to his general mistrust of others, was his need to best his friends and foes in everything, combined with a volatile personality capable of destructive behavior. But that was not the end of it.
One final result about Bart from Dr. O’Rourke’s test was that he possessed a narcissistic personality trait, which is a severe mental personality trait that is characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.
One of the more telling traits of a narcissistic personality is that the people who have it tend to view those around them as tools to accomplish their goals. Others are merely there for the true narcissist as a means to an end, as a way of achieving whatever goals he has in mind that he is unable to accomplish on his own. Dr. O’Rourke explained that narcissism is a common trait among most teenagers; however, to have the disorder is different. She further explained that Bart was not conclusively diagnosed as having the disorder, but he did possess several of the traits that made up the disorder. As a result, she believed that many of Bart’s scores, which had flown off the charts, were abnormal. She reasoned since Bart had come from an allegedly strong, close family with strong values, and since Bart had no prior criminal history, that the results must be skewed for some unknown reason.
Indeed, instead of diagnosing Bart with narcissistic personality disorder, as was suggested by the Millon Test results, Dr. O’Rourke concluded that Bart had adjustment disorder, a far less intense condition.
According to the Mayo Clinic, adjustment disorder is a type of stress-related mental illness. You may feel anxious or depressed, or even have thoughts of suicide. You may not be able to go about some of your daily routines, such as work or seeing friends. Or you may make reckless decisions. In essence,