SAVING ONE CHILD FROM HERSELF

Alexis Baker sleeps with her cell phone by her side.

She's lost 20 pounds, spent thousands of dollars and frantically driven all
over central Illinois.

"I've put 8,000 miles on my vehicle in the last six months, running to
Bartonville and Canton and Howett Street," the slender, wispy redhead says.

She's not complaining. If you compare her fate to that of her daughter -
who has lost more than 50 pounds, been threatened and beaten and jailed -
Alexis is in fine shape. Whatever it takes to save her daughter from crack
cocaine, she'll do it. She just wishes the authorities would help instead
of stand in the way.

"I do a lot of praying," she says.

In some ways, this started nine years ago. That's when the car Alexis'
then-18-year-old daughter was driving was hit head-on by a farm truck as
the family was en route to breakfast for Alexis' birthday. Both her
daughter and one of her three sons were badly injured.

So in an eerie way, Alexis is all too familiar with fearing for her
daughter's life. Her daughter had been pretty stable for a long time. The
girl even had a 4-year-old daughter of her own and spent the bulk of her
time as a stay-at-home mom. But Alexis' daughter also had a part-time job
cutting hair. That's where a co-worker introduced her to crack and
reintroduced Alexis to fear.

This time, instead of a desperate call from a hospital, Alexis dreads one
from a police station. Instead of wondering if her child will ever leave
her hospital bed, she wonders if her child has found a bed to sleep in.
Instead of working with medical personnel to get her child out on her own,
she is pleading with law enforcement personnel to make her child stay home
and get better.

"I even bought handcuffs," Alexis says. "They told me, 'You can't do that.'
I said, 'I'm trying to save her life.'"

Yet there is also an odd sliver of hope. As a result of brain injuries to
her daughter from the accident, Alexis ended up being her legal guardian.
Most parents are helpless when one of their children is ensnared by drugs.
Even Alexis was unable to keep her daughter from going back to the streets
on the two different occasions Peoria police brought her in.

But in late August, thanks to her guardianship, Alexis was able to get a
highly unusual emergency court order from Fulton County Circuit Judge Gene
Taylor with the daughter not even present. The order requires Peoria police
or any other law enforcement officers in Illinois to help take Alexis'
daughter to White Oaks Treatment Center.

"As far as I'm concerned, that's a totally enforceable order," says Peoria
Police Capt. Michael Scally, who ran it past the city's legal department
because he'd never seen such an order before. "That's a new one on me."

Scally had agreed to meet Alexis at the Peoria County Courthouse Tuesday
morning. Her daughter had been picked up on a charge of forging checks - on
Alexis' account - and they had planned to use the order to persuade her to
choose treatment rather than jail. But Scally had a meeting that morning.
Before Scally could get there, maybe 20 minutes late, the Peoria County
State's Attorney's Office had dismissed the charges, and Alexis' daughter
had taken off again.

"I kind of failed her a little bit yesterday, to tell you the truth,"
Scally said earlier this week.

At least he tried. Alexis appreciates that. But she doesn't understand why
Peoria prosecutors let her daughter go, saying there wasn't enough evidence
to prosecute.

"I've got the papers at home," she says, crushed again.

A source at the state's attorney's office confirmed that there was not
enough admissible evidence to take Alexis' daughter to trial and said they
had not known about the court order.

Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons said the office rarely
prosecutes such cases, even though they are felonies, because it is almost
impossible to prove there was no consent. "The saddest cases I have are
when a parent comes down and wants to save a child from themselves," he says.

He adds that Alexis is "really lucky" to have gotten such a court order. He
knows his office didn't see it until after Alexis' daughter had left
because it would have raised questions about whether or not it was
constitutional.

"The American system permits you to live the way you want, even if that's
with your nose barely above the water line," he says.

In any event, Alexis has heard that before. She has been told repeatedly
that there is little she can do if her daughter chooses drugs. Scally
confirms that normally, "we've got nothing." But even with this slight edge
of a court order, she feels like she's losing the race against time and crack.

"I've spent thousands of dollars. I've got a court order. And no one will
help me," she says. "Give her the chance to get clean and see what's going
on. Then if that's the life she chooses, I'll have to let her go."

But first, she says, "At least give her this chance."