My Personal Interactions with Domestic Abuse

I first came in contact with Domestic Violence when a friend of mine and I were sitting on his front porch watching kids play and shoot the breeze. Suddenly our neighbor’s girlfriend comes running out her house next door terrified and crying. She and her husband were our best friends at the time. Her husband is running behind her and tackles her from behind, turns her over and starts to pound her face repeatedly. Oblivious to the entire neighborhood watching him, my friend and I run and drag him off her. As we’re holding him off we look down and notice her shirt has been ripped off and she is covered in bruises. Just then he breaks a little from our grasp and kicks her in the side. We beat him until he was unconscious.

When Police arrive we find that he has been beating her for months under the threat that he will kill their two daughters if she tells. Police determined by witnesses that we acted in defense of the victim and he is carted off to jail.
It was about eight months later we saw him come by his house to find it empty and his girlfriend and daughters re-located and a mob of still angry neighbors telling him he’d better move on. He did. We still hear from the girlfriend from time to time who has re-married to a loving man who treats her right.

The second time I encountered this kind of violence it was a nurse, Cindy, with whom my girlfriend worked. My girlfriend sensed that something was wrong from the bruises she came to work with and having a bogus excuse for each one. As time went on Cindy and my girlfriend became fast friends and were going to lunch, exchanging books and going shopping. After a while my girlfriend told me they weren’t meeting as often and she was looking more and more depressed as time went on. One day she confided that her husband had been beating on her because he thought my girlfriend was having an affair with her or maybe both of us. She was not ready to leave or take action at that time.

It was not even two months later Cindy called our house and as my girlfriend
was out shopping she reluctantly spoke to me to say her and her son were in fear for their lives and needed help. I told her to come right away and I’d help. In the meantime I called my girlfriend and told her to come home immediately which she did. As Cindy pulled up in front of the house I thought it may be better if she pulled in the driveway, so she did. As she came up the sidewalk I noticed that her face was black and blue and she had dried blood in her hair. When I saw her twelve year old son his left eye was swollen shut. Her husband had gotten drunk and went on a rampage.

My girlfriend automatically goes to dial 911 Cindy tries to stop her saying that her husband will beat her worse for this. I sat Cindy down and told her if she would do what my girlfriend and I told her she’d never be hit again by this man. Well before Police could get there her husband pulls up in front of my house and gets out and starts demanding we let her go. He starts coming up my driveway staggering drunk, pulls out a pocket knife and stabs one of Cindy’s tires. I came out of the house and he holds the knife towards me so I kicked him in the groin as hard as I could.
Just about that time the Police round the corner and all that they had seen was the kick. I’m immediately cuffed and put in the back of the Patrol car while his partner goes into my house to sort it all out. Minutes later the partner comes out and the two talk for a minute then let me out, un-cuff me, and thank me for helping out in this situation. That’s been about six years now and Cindy has not re-married but has been taking Kickboxing for four years now and is dating.

I tell these stories to say that violence against women and children is all our business. I’ve seen women and men alike put their tails between their legs, run off and deny in their minds that this is going on next door or in their own families. Meanwhile the victims languish in a violent prison seeing no way out. We as communities all over the world must reach out to the abused and in some cases stop it ourselves. If a young lady were to ask me what should do with their life and how to start it I’d say first off, learn to defend yourself. We live in a violent world where women and children are easy prey to domestic violence.
Rob Roy