Joshua Stewart, 13 and with an IQ of 36, didn’t really understand what he was doing that day, Jan. 18, when he pulled his mother’s hair and punched her in the head and then threw his little brother across the room. Joshua is severely autistic, and in the days before he grew some and got stronger, his mother, Salima Mabry, could control him. But no more.
And that’s why, desperate for help, she took Joshua to the Wake County Crisis Assessment unit for folks with mental illness. There they stayed for days, in a room with no bed, no television and one window. Clothes were kept on plastic bags on the floor. Mabry would clean up her son by sponging him off.
