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By Jake Rollow
Hispanic link
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After three months on the run, 15-year-old José Veloso was returned to his Reston, Va., home, his grandmother Silvia, and the rest of his family on Aug. 9.
The police dropped him off. They'd picked him up for driving a stolen moped, taken him to the station to file a report, and then driven him to houses he claimed were his, but where he knew no one would be home. Eventually he gave in and told them his actual address.
When his grandmother sat next to him crying that night, he told her he'd missed her. He said he'd been unable to sleep some nights, thinking about her and his nine-year-old half-brother Chris.
A couple of days later, the family sent him on a camping trip with his uncle, Mario, with whom they decided he would go live in Frederick, Md.
Despite having missed each other, José and Silvia, who is blind, still could not live together. She was frustrated that he'd smoked marijuana while away, and he didn't like that she wouldn't let him go out with his friends, whom she did not trust.
On his last night in the house they argued. José became frustrated and wiped tears on his t-shirt. Silvia told him she had to be strict after he was suspended from school.
"There is no school for parenting," she commented remorsefully.
While he was gone, José slept at the homes of three friends and their families. He also spent two nights in one of his host's backyards after missing their curfew, and one night in a vacant apartment he happened upon.
Most of his summer friends were Latino or black, like the majority of the students at South Lakes High School.
He spent the first few years of his life in Venezuela and identifies himself as a Latino, which he says made him a target for teachers. They wanted to get students of color in trouble, and the principal sought their expulsion, he contends.
Although his grandmother thought many of José's friends were gangbangers, he says only one was affiliated with a gang.
José related how he spent the summer just hanging
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