How a St. Paul cop helped a kid get his life back
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Today's must-read item comes from Mara Gottfried at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, who tells the story of Ali Bility, a 17-year-old who was in the starting lineup last night when Como Park's football squad took the field.
Suffering from depression, Bility had attempted suicide last winter.
“It was a lot of stuff on my plate at the moment,” he tells Gottfried. “Just minor stuff and major stuff all combined.”
It's also the story of a St. Paul cop who gave a damn.
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Toy Vixayvong, a resource officer at Como, sought Bility out when he returned to school after treatment and hospitalization.
“When I met Ali, he couldn’t look further ahead,” Vixayvong tells the paper. “He was just living for today, struggling through today, didn’t have any plans in the future at all and then we started talking about — ‘What’s your short-term goal?’ ”
“Things are going good,” Bility says now. He'll graduate next spring.
Como beat Breck last night 39-to-17. As if that matters.
