Despite Susan’s assurances that Jim hadn’t hurt her and she wasn’t afraid of him, he was handcuffed and taken away. They said, `Well, we know that women who are abused often lie out of fear.’”

hopeless_case · 2008-08-07T15:04:11+00:00

Why, given that Susan was on his side, did he have to plead no-contest?

I am missing something.

A male relative of mine went through something like this recently, except his wife tried to destroy some of his property and when he pushed her away, she called the police claiming he was beating her up. While the police were on their way, she slapped herself on one side of the face so she would have some evidence to show them, then got an ice pack and was dumb enough to hold the ice on the wrong side (the one she didn't slap herself on).

The police report actually noted that she was holding the ice pack on the wrong side.

The policeman, of course, was forbidden to use common sense and my relative was handcuffed and arrested. His lawyer advised him to plead guilty also.

lynn · 2008-08-07T17:24:55+00:00

This kind of thing always scares the hell out of me. My fiance and I both practice aikido, and we'll be out someplace tickling or poking at each other in play when he pulls out the kotegaesh and I find my top half suddenly parallel to the ground (he never takes it all the way to the throw unless we're actually on the mat). We sit there for a second and then he lets me go, but all we need is for somebody to see the wrong moment and make a phone call and he's completely screwed. And we both could be, if it ended up interfering with his career, because he'll be making most of the money when he gets out of school.

linuxlass · 2008-08-07T16:56:44+00:00

Wow that's scary. I once had some neighbors call the police on us when my husband and I were having a loud argument. I guess the neighbors were concerned because we had two small kids at the time*. By the time the cops arrived, we had stopped yelling and were talking more-or-less quietly, trying to reconcile. One cop took me aside separately, asked me what was going on, let me explain, and I assured him that there was no abuse and that we were only yelling and the kids were fine. The other cop talked to my husband (I don't know what was said). They were apparently assured that things were ok, and left. And my husband and I were able to finished our talking and got things settled between us that night.

This was in Oregon, where on the whole people seem reasonable.

[* we were living in an apartment, and you know how easy it is for the neighbors to know your business. It was interesting to hear the couple upstairs arguing in Russian.]

2008-08-08T05:45:56+00:00

I had an little domestic incident where the cops were called. They asked my girlfriend if I hit her, and she said no, then they asked her if she hit me, and she said yes. Bam, 3 days in jail. She couldn't hurt me if she took a running start, but she admitted to it. As soon as I heard her say yes, I thought oh shit. I knew what the policy was, but I didn't think she would admit to it, and I sure as hell didn't think she'd be in jail for 3 days. To make matters worse, there was a bitch in the jail with her that felt the need to clog the toilet so it would overflow all over the jail floor.

elissa1959 · 2008-08-10T02:12:02+00:00

"The best defense is a good offense."

In the above case, Susan was fairly ineffective and it's not clear whether that was because of who she was or who the cops were. If it had been me, I probably would have shouted "STOP!" at the top of my lungs, followed by "Do I look like a scared victim? How dare you!" to the police officers (they tend not to laser women, and I'd be praying they didn't take me in too).

I hate to say it, but if Susan had been a guy, he would have had a different stance, more self-assurance, a stronger command voice. Women who are abused as well as women who aren't abused, but who still are raised a bit powerless, sound alike.

That said, it sucks that the automatic reaction is that the male is the abuser. The recent reseasch (posted here) shows the deck is much more even these days, at least among the younger generation.

On the other hand, it is good that police do take domestic violence seriously. They used to not. We used to call the cops on our neighbors when I was growing up in the 60s. The asshole dad would hit his wife and kids. We were friends with the kids and they'd be roughed up form time to time. We gave one of the daughters a key to our house as a "safe haven" in her teenage years because she was often the target and not as emotionally resilient as her sisters.

I'm not saying that the dad should have been put away, but 10 weeks of counseling on anger management would not have gone amiss.

I think in part it's up to women today to learn to act more like men when you want to be taken seriously. Develop the firm voice and command stance. Again, I don't know because I wasn't there, it might have been that the cops were completely missing it.

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