Whatever circumstances have led to former Detroit Lions wide receiver Titus Young to be arrested three times in a week, his father, Richard Young, doesn’t recognize the person he raised as a child.
According to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Titus had spent Friday morning with his father prior to being arrested for the third time in a week. The pair had made a morning run to get doughnuts and coffee and returned back to Richard’s house in Los Angeles. Titus told his father he’d left his phone and asked for the key to retrieve it. Titus then took off and wound up back in jail.
“I hope they just forgive Titus because this ain’t none of Titus, it wasn’t none of his fault,” Richard Young said. “I look at my son right now, I don’t see my son. That’s not my son. I know my son. Titus is not the boy I really raised, I’m saying the way he act, the way he intermix in society right now. He shut down, he look through you, it’s like he’s depressed.”
Titus was arrested on DUI charges last Monday and released from jail. He then was arrested again doing his best “Gone in 60 Seconds” impression and trying to steal his car back out of the police impound lot. Then Friday he was arrested for a third time and charged with burglary, assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest.
Richard recalled a conversation with his son after his troubles with the Lions where Titus was struggling to figure out what was happening to him.
“He said, ‘I just don’t feel good. I’m not myself, I don’t feel good, Dad. I don’t know what’s happening to me,’ ” Richard said.
Titus was supposed to re-enter a program Monday for medical treatment when he was arrested and wound up in the medical facilities of the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana, Calif. instead.
“We want y’all to pray for the Young family,” Richard said. “Ain’t nothing we can do, man, but pray. We just want Titus to get well, that’s all we’re doing right now. We ain’t thinking about football, we’re thinking about our son now because I don’t know what’s going on with him.”
Whether it’s through the legal system or through the efforts of his family, let’s hope Titus Young can get the help he desperately needs.