Years ago when I was on patrol I routinely drove through the parking lots of nightclubs right around closing time. The presence of a prowling squad car cut way down on the fights reminded exiting patrons that it might be a good idea to hire a taxi to get home instead of having to deal with me and a drunk driving arrest.
One night I was cruising through the lot of a particularly notorious country-western themed club. Some of the people waved, a few made pig noises, but in general everyone was relatively well behaved enough that I was heading toward the exit. The music was still thumping loud enough I could actually feel it as opposed to just hearing it, and a mass exodus of people in all manners of “cowboy” dress and levels of intoxication were spilling out. The air was a heavy mix of perfumes and body odor, and the chatter melted into a festive buzz.
All of a sudden dozens of people started pointing toward the back of the club, and there was a frantic tension to the gestures. I told the dispatch center that I was heading around to the back of the building to check out a possible fight, and I heard a fellow officer say over the radio that he would start heading my way to back me up.
A crowd had gathered, and as I rounded the corner I saw a man pummeling a woman who was curled up in a ball on the ground, trying desperately to cover her head as he threw a hailstorm of blows and screamed in her ear. He had a knee on her back making it difficult of her to move, and none of the “cowboys” were moving to help.
I yelled, “Police!” as I yanked him off, and he stumbled sideways off her for a few seconds. He was back up before I even had my handcuffs out, and I distinctly remember thinking, “Oh, crap.” He was gigantic. I know storytellers have a tendency to embellish the size of the fish that got away or the level of threat from an enemy, but this guy was the size of an elevator door—honest.
Have you ever seen one of those rodeo contests in which several spectators volunteer to play “Cowboy Poker?” The rules are simple. The volunteers sit around a poker table that has been placed in the center of the arena. A very angry bull is released into said arena, and in a matter of seconds all but one or two of the idiots at the table run for the fences. A couple of even less bright individuals will stay seated at the table, because the one to stay seated longest wins. Of course, the entire time they’re exposed to an enraged beast comprised entirely of gristle, horns and hate whose testicles were sharply yanked just prior to his arena entrance gate being opened.
Now, I’m not too big an idiot, and I most definitely wanted to be one of the less stupid fellows who run for it, but the problem was that my enraged bull had just been trying to stomp the brains out of the woman who was still lying in a fetal position, sobbing and bleeding near the edge of the loose circle of onlookers¾who were still on-looking.
So, I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to stay at the table and try to avoid this man’s horns. My advantages were that I was sober, armed and a little bit faster than him. Nonetheless, I really wanted the other officer to hurry up.
Now if you know anything at all about police work, you know I was wearing a gun, a nightstick, and pepper spray. This was in the days before electronic Tasers, so that wasn’t an option. The thing was, he got up so fast I didn’t even have time to grab for the spray or the baton, and for the next minute or so he and I shoved and growled at each other all over the parking lot. I remember briefly flying at one point.
Finally I got him in an off balance moment, and I was able to send him rolling sideways. This worked great because, as luck would have it, he hit his head on a car fender as he went down. It rang his bell just enough that his fight was over, and I moved with all speed to handcuff him. Right about the time I got the second cuff on his wrist (which was, by the way, as thick as a softball¾honest), the woman who had been crying in her little puddle of blood climbed onto my back and began clawing me from front to back.
At this point the whole scene went from being a crowd enthralling gutter fight to slapstick as I flailed around the same parking lot trying valiantly to remove the shrieking harpy from my flanks, all the while doing my best to keep from actually hurting her.
My partner arrived about the time I was finally able to remove her and within seconds of being arrested she slipped into a sleepy calm. She went from Iron Maiden to cuddly in twenty seconds, and it didn’t take much longer than that for the crowd to disperse. The show was over.
Loyalty is a quirky thing. It keeps men from running away in battle, makes us feel defensive when someone insults our family or heritage, and occasionally makes us cruel or even violent toward people who are trying to help us.
In this woman’s case, I’ll never know if her loyalty stemmed from fear of this man trying to kill her, love of the same man, hatred of police, or loathing of the person taking her man’s freedom away. Regardless, she fought like a lioness for a man who had just tortured and mocked her, and though that story will always be a vivid one for me, the issue of misplaced loyalty is one that has come up thousands of times in my cases over the years.
One of the most constant themes we address in domestic violence investigations has to do with the revolving door pattern of abuse, separation, reconciliation, and back to abuse. In the circle of professionals throughout law enforcement, social work, victim advocacy, prosecution, and health care, this pattern is called the Cycle of Violence (see November 2010).
Often a woman is very angry with her abusive partner at the time the police arrive, and officers frequently hear that she wants to “press charges” to the fullest extent of the law. However, it is just as common that officers and prosecutors learn that the victim has gone back to the abuser within hours, days or weeks of the violence, and that she is now his greatest supporter.
In an upcoming post on substance abuse I’ll make an argument that the use and abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs is often directly tied into violent relationships, either as a way for oppressed individuals to cope with the hell of their lives, as a tool used by the controlling personality to manipulate his or her victim, or as a chemical catalyst for touching off angry, violent episodes in situations that might otherwise have remained peaceful.
There is often another form of addiction in these relationships, and that is the addiction to the relationship itself. I think we can generally agree that it feels good to fall in love or to make up and renew a love, so good in fact, that some people unconsciously sabotage their otherwise positive relationships just so they can experience that wonderful vibe again. Actual chemical reactions occur within the brain when humans feel passion, and anyone who has ever felt that knows that it is as alluring as crack cocaine must be to a junky. So, too, is the sense that being with someone, even someone who treats you like dung is preferable to some people than the loathing they feel for loneliness.
I think this often holds true for a tremendous number of women involved in a domestic violence situation. Remember that she has often been belittled and emotionally battered along with her physical injuries for a very long time. Yes, he beats her, but she can often recognize the developing tension for what it will become and either take steps to calm him down (such as through sex), or at least be somewhat prepared when the hitting starts.
If, however, you have come to believe that you are as worthless and unappealing as he’s told you, how is it possible for you to conceive that another man would A) want you, and B) treat you well? Given that, I can imagine a lot of scenarios in which a battered woman believes so deeply that she can never “do better,” accepting her lot in life as simply a hardship to bear along with low pay, sick children, or menstrual pain.
People latch onto awful causes and swear fealty to cruel and arrogant leaders, often for reasons so odd we fail to fully understand their logic. Look at the followers of Jim Jones, David Koresch, or any dictator bent on ethnic cleansing throughout history and you get a feel for how powerful and intense an ill-gotten loyalty can truly be.
I don’t pretend to understand fully why someone would be loyal to a person who routinely terrorizes them, other than to point out that loyalty in its purest form is one of the more redeeming qualities, sadly manipulated by cruel, controlling people who thrive on the fact that there are people in his world who love, hate, revere and dread him so much that they will stand by him no matter what. The only answer to that is a consistent, firm message from law enforcement, social work, medicine, judiciary, and communities in general that blindly following madness is madness, and then follow that message by offering paths to a different way.
