I have found over the last few years of doing this job one thing that never ceases to amaze me is what people will do or tolerate in the name of love.
This little ditty here is about a girl I will call "Jill" for the time being.
Now Jill here is a girl who has a penchant for the "bad boys". She is not even interested unless you have had more than a few run-ins with the local boys in blue.
I have been dealing with Jill for several years now over various DUIs or driving with a suspended license. No big deal. Then there is her ex-husband. Notorious thief about town all the way up to the Fed level. Drives a BMW M3 yet appears to have no real job to speak of. Funny how that works.
Then there is the current boyfriend. Not a thief, but a guy who likes to party and fight with all the liquid courage he can muster. These two manage to find each other of all places in a DUI intensive supervision court. Kind of like a drug court to lessen the charges and jail tim
e for habitual DUI people. Very intense program that takes dedication from the participants.
e for habitual DUI people. Very intense program that takes dedication from the participants.Enough history lets get to the good stuff. So Jill and this other guy take a liking to each other and as tends to happen they get together in the horizontal sort of fashion. So as you may guess Jill gets a surprise a few weeks later. (no need to elaborate). Jill and her man decide the "best" thing for them would be to abort the baby and continue on their lives.
Come 3 months later and Jill and her man have a few domestic issues and are forbidden by the courts to see each other. Jill actually initiated this too. She moves around to a few places including her own place and her grandparents house in a secured gated community. The boyfriend just keeps showing up and creating problems. So one night after sneaking around and hooking up for a quickie she feels guilty and leaves him. So about 1 am or so he decides he is not through with her and shows up and grand daddys place and knocks on her window. Jill being ever the smart one lets him in to "talk". Silly girl. After a quick smack in the face from him then a full weight knee to the groin he jumps out of the window and runs.
So here is where I come in. I get a call from our control dispatch that Jill is in the hospital from an assault and being that she is on house arrest I have to go check it out. I call a partner and we go to the hospital and get the story I just told. Turns out Jill is not angry with the boyfriend or wanting to press any charges. She explains that she feels guilty because of the abortion and loves him all the same. Talk about a jaw dropper. We have all heard of these incidents but until you see it for yourself it just does not hit home. This girls groin was swollen to the size of a grapefruit and doubled over for a week from the pain.
Needless to say as far as I know they are still together although he has done quite a bit of jail time due to the assault and other legal issues. Maybe one day she will see the light.
As a closing I just want to say I hope a few people who have dealt with a domestic violence issue can come around and realize nobody deserves that kind of treatment. Woman or man. Please find a way to overcome the fear. 
Check out the visual below. Some things may surprise you. I know they did me.
Check out the visual below. Some things may surprise you. I know they did me. Until next time,
Charlie
I'll never understand the behavior of some people.
ReplyDeleteE.T.
You and me both Earl.
ReplyDeleteEarl, directed me to your blog because of this post for reasons that will become obvious in a bit.
ReplyDelete"Jill" is a victim of not only physical abuse but emotional and mental abuse. Neither of these should exist in our 'civilized' world but they do. It is an evil circle of control and power.
You are quite right. No one deserves this behavior yet more than a million people per year in the US suffer from abuse.
Several years ago I met a woman who belonged to a group of abused people. I became friends with several of them. Most were women but some were men. Abuse knows no sexual, racial or partner preferential boundaries. The stories are chilling. To maintain anonymity, these are not their stories. They are from news articles or other materials.
--A pregnant woman is beaten by her husband because he thinks the child isn't his. She almost looses the baby. He is arrested for battery and in jail for only a month. Oh. The child WAS his.
--A woman is beaten because she doesn't beat her children when they misbehave. So, she starts beating the kids. Together they almost kill one of their kids.
--A man is beaten but can't defend himself because she tells him that if he does defend himself, she will get bruises and call the police. She will tell them that HE was doing the beating and he will be arrested.
--A man is arrested multiple times for raping and beating his wife. The neighbors would say little to police and wouldn't help the woman. She finally sought peace the only way she could. She placed the muzzle of a .45 in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
--Another woman, beaten and abused for years by a 'bad boy' that was in and out of jail did what she had to do, to protect herself and her children. Friends, family and neighbors would not help. Police would arrest him, but the judicial system would only hold him for short periods of time and let him out. One night after he got out of jail, he violated yet another restraining order and came to her house. He threatened her and the kids with a shotgun. She got him to put down the gun with the promise of sex and beer. He drank and drank and passed out in bed waiting for her. She then used the shotgun on him. She was arrested and put in prison for nearly 50 years.
--A successful business woman leaves her physically abusive husband and gets a restraining order. When he was served he went to her business and removed half of her brain with a shot to the head.
There are likely 10,000 stories like these for each one I wrote about. It is disgusting but rarely high profile unless it happens to a popular person. Silence is an abuser's best friend.
So, I decided to do something. I will be riding my little Honda Rebel from Las Vegas to Kitty Hawk and back. Through this ride I will be collecting donations for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and passing out business cards with the phone number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If I can help just one woman, man or child get out of an abusive situation, my ride will be a success.
Thank you Earl for pointing me to this blog, and thank you Charlie, for writing a great post about Domestic Violence. Stay safe.
Razorsedge-
ReplyDeleteThat was almost a blog in itself. I see theses issues on a daily basis and struggle with the right thing to do when you get no cooperation from the person being abused. Thank you so much for that reply and please get me the info on your ride as well as a card at some point.
Charlie
Hi Charlie,
ReplyDeleteSorry about that long comment. I am somewhat passionate about DV. If you would like, just e-mail your mailing address to kc7rad@gmail.com and I will be glad to send you some cards and fliers.
Take care!
-Ken
When I was still a cop Oregon passed a domestic violence law. It took the burden off the woman to press charges and put it on the responding officers. What amazed me is that when we would be in the process of taking the male offender into custody the female would often attack us! I once had the tip of a screwdriver imbedded in my Second Chance vest. Yikes!
ReplyDeleteAn LEO can't solve the world's problems. Like my training officer said, just keep making good arrests and hope it all works out in the end. I spent a lot of time running around bewildered at human psychology. Still do, as a matter of fact.
Enjoy your blog posts. For all the frustrating things you encounter, there's a lot of good you do otherwise. Just try not to forget that and give up.
Irondad-
ReplyDeleteYour response was very appreciated. I do have some tales of good things that have happened to me over the last 8 years. I will be posting a few soon I hope. Thank you for your service in LE as well. Keep those riders safe and knowledgable.
Charlie
For those of us not living in the kind of life described in your post the people just seem nuts. Candidates for the old Jerry Springer show. But nothing is ever that simple. The graphic illustrates a crazy cycle. Easy to see how hard it would be to get out of that circle once you are in it and biology and faulty brain function starts to work.
ReplyDeleteIrondad pointed me this way and I am glad he did.
Good luck in your work.
Steve Williams
Scooter in the Sticks
Irondad pointed to this post in a recent one of his...
ReplyDeleteLooking at your wheel illustration, I see several things my old supervisor did, to me as well as to his new wife. [7 to me, 2 that I know of to her.] Now I'm wondering if she needs help, & what to do.
I can't exactly mail something to her or leave it on the door 'cause he'd find it and probably do away with it before she saw it.
SteveWilliams - Thanks for the comment. You are dead right in saying that looking from the outside it all looks strange. I must admit something and it is hard to do but I may feel better by doing so. So here goes.....I was with a woman for 13 years and she was very controlling. I felt in some ways it waas good since I was a bit of a loose cannon in my younger days also..... I loved her very much. Any to make this short looking on that wheel there is on section about Economic Abuse. Well I dealt with that for years in somewhat exactly how it is described on the wheel. I was given ten dollars a week to buy lunches, snacks and such. If I wanted to buy something I basically had to ask her for weeks becasue she acted like we were always broke. Like I said not an easy thing to deal with but when you truly care about someone you will and do go to the ends of the earth for them and only others can see the real light of the situation. I was blinded for way too long and the aftermath has made me leary and un-trusting of some situations.
ReplyDeleteKrysta - DV is something that is not easily seen by people at first. I have found that many people do not have a clue about what they have gone through until it is too late or something bad has happened. It is unfortunate that this has happened to you and very risky and difficult to watch it happen to someone else. I am very sympathetic to your quandery. I really do not know what to suggest to you since I do not know the relationship with you and your bosses wife. There are many ways to make slight suggestions but you risk so many things when you bring these issues to light. I hope some one on this board can help you in this problem. Please take care.
ReplyDelete