If a genie granted me the ability to eliminate one police run type, I’d choose domestic disturbances, no question about it. OK, juvenile runs. Definitely vehicle accidents. Poll any number of cops, and you’ll likely get that same initial answer: domestics. They’re the worst. They’re frequent, violent and full of lies. Half the time, people don’t think they’re lying because they’re living their own warped truth. The other half, the arrests go nowhere because the time and distance between the parties change the mood and the story. The worst of these combine the adult and juvenile worlds into one big in-home mess. No matter if they’re directly involved or not, kids end up as the victims, making domestics not only frustrating but sad, particularly when the dispute turns violent.
Take, for instance, the family I first met as Mom stared down the business end of my partner’s duty pistol. To cut to the chase, she believed legally owning a handgun gave her the personal freedom to do anything she wanted with it. At least, that’s how she justified shooting five times at her scared-shitless husband, ushering their two fear-paralyzed kids out of their suddenly very unsafe house. She was suffering from a narcotic-induced mental break, and her interpretation of her legal right was just a bit misguided.
No matter if they’re directly involved or not, kids end up as the victims, making domestics not only frustrating but sad.
“I’m a legal gun owner,” she told me, “so I can shoot my gun when I want and where I want.”
“Not true,” I explained to her, using more detail — detail I find unnecessary to explain to you, learned reader. Detail I’m positive she didn’t listen to a word of.
Her mental illness, drug-induced or not, was unfortunate, but it didn’t make her actions any more justifiable, and it sure didn’t make her interactions with me any less bizarre.
“You know why you’re here?” she asked me, apparently oblivious to a fact I considered obvious.
“Yes,” I responded. “From what I gather, you shot bullets at your fleeing husband with your incredibly scared children in tow.”
“You’re here because I filed a report with the U.S. attorney general,” she continued. “Someone’s been cloaking my energy, and they’ve done it to you too. Can you feel it? It’s spiritual. That’s why you’re here. Because of the spirits, for spiritual reasons.”
“No, ma’am, I’m here because of the law, for legal reasons — mainly the shooting at your husband thing,” I said.
This may have been the worst summer evening of this family’s lives, but the opposite has to be said for their three little shih tzus. When we showed up, they came tumbling out of the house like Alvin, Simon and Theodore, and didn’t stop running and rolling on top of one another the entire time. For all their joy, Mom, now in handcuffs, had quite the opposite view. After I gave her a few more replies about why I believed we were there versus why she believed we’d been summoned, she didn’t get any happier. My late shift relief showed up just as she made her displeasure with my answers clear by squatting down, wearing nothing but a nightie (and handcuffs), and pissed all over my boots. “On that note, I too will relieve myself. I’m outta here. Good luck, late shift.” As I left, her husband told me he loves her and will bail her out. I commend his commitment but get the feeling the gravity of the situation is just a little lost on him. Relationships are tough.
In intimate relationship domestics, the thought of being vulnerably alone versus together (yet vulnerable) is a scary reality. The perception of immutability kicks in. Those are typically the inaction domestics. Then you’ve got the domestics where people decide they will act, but it’ll be by exacting their own extrajudicial retribution.
Take this run. I’m dispatched to a call of a male beating a female in a parking lot. Many times, our run descriptions don’t at all match what’s actually happening on scene. “Person down in the middle of the street.” Translation: Wheelchair-bound man panhandling. “Robbery of a business in progress.” Translation: Kid stole a bag of chips. “Person stabbed.” Translation: Guy was holding a knife. “Person shot.” Translation: Actually, that one is usually right. In this case, the domestic was called in by medics working nearby, so that substantially increased the legitimacy of what was supposedly going on.
The descriptions of the two individuals are vague. I pass a guy leaning against his car. He stares at me, almost through me. I assume he’s the male half of the equation. I keep cruising the parking lot looking for the female. I instead find the medics.
“Hi there. I’m guessing the male half is that guy over there …?”
“Not sure where he went,” one replies between dispatches.
“Where’s the female?” I ask.
“Last I saw she was walking toward that corner of the parking lot. Didn’t want us,” one of them says.
“Thanks,” I say, as we go our separate ways.
There are a bunch of cars parked at that end of the lot, so it’s hard to see if anyone’s there. I drive over and find a woman slouched down inside a clear glass-paneled bus stop. I get out and walk over to her, immediately noticing her bloody lip and swollen eyes. She’s been crying, and her shirt’s all a mess.
“Hey there. Can I help you out? What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Leave me alone.”
“Can I get medics to check out that bloody lip?”
“I don’t need help.”
“Can I get someone to take a photo of that injury so we’ve got a record?”
“No.”
Not a surprising answer there, I’ll admit.
I’d just come from a domestic where the victim was also unwilling to participate. I was still somewhat heated from getting nowhere on that one, so I’m a little short with her, which I realize is surely the opposite of what she needed.
“Look, you’re bleeding from your mouth, your clothes are stretched and ripped, you’ve clearly been crying, and I’m sure the guy who did all this is the guy who stared me down as I drove in here. Why won’t you let me get you some help?!”
“My brothers will take care of it,” she replies.
“Your brothers will take care of it?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re medics then? Therapists?”
“Shut up and leave me alone,” she says, picking up what I’m putting down.
I take an exasperated inhale and say as I breathe out, “So let me get this straight. Given the choice between civil society’s taxpayer-funded professional law enforcement response to a potentially felony-level violent crime or taking things into your own hands with a response that will most certainly lead to more violence and, more likely than not, end with a person shot, maybe killed, you’d choose the latter, continuing the cycle of violence begetting violence? Am I correct on that?”
“Yes.”
“Really.”
“Yep.”
“OK, BK. Have it your way.” And I stomp off.
Maybe not the highest level of professionalism there, but tell me it’s not accurate. I understand that in that moment this woman who’d just been beaten and scared by a guy she probably feels financially, if not emotionally, attached to didn’t need a soliloquy on violence reduction. I understand that oftentimes the victim in these situations keeps returning to a violent companion because, perverse as it is, she feels that person is someone who offers her more protection and stability — and many times drugs or booze to feed an addicted escape from reality — than going it alone. I understand that even if she wasn’t willing to be a victim in this instance, there may come a time when she’ll tear down those barriers and accept help. And that such time may never come. But maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world to occasionally offer a blunt view of what’s going on. I’m sure there’s a study somewhere that says I’m definitely wrong.
I finish up the run by driving over to the likely male half, who’s clearly drunk, and saying, “If you ever lay a hand on that woman again, I will personally see to it that you’re given the harshest penalty possible.” Of course, that’s a completely empty promise since I have no victim, no names, can’t ensure what a prosecutor will do and am speaking to a man so drunk he probably didn’t register a thing I said. Medics, my only potential witnesses, are gone by now too, on to another run themselves. I add some notes to the run log, close it out and clear another one back in my beat. More domestic violence. Call it Domestic Day, or a Tuesday.