May you all find something to be thankful for, no matter where you are.
If you haven't read Part 1, you'll need to scroll down and read it before this one.
I guess I still didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. As I got out of the car, I could hear yelling and crying from the inside of one of the disheveled trailers. As I got still closer, I noticed that on a direct trajectory from the inside of the small mobile home’s kitchen and on a line with the broiler pan and the turkey, the window had been broken out.
When I looked inside the open door, I saw a familiar scene. Inside the one room camper were three people. The man, a white male with a bushy beard clothed in filthy shorts and no shirt, covered with tattoos, was standing over a thin cowering female. The woman was obviously afraid of the man and had what appeared to be a red mark on her face. The two children, a girl and a boy, around five or six years old, were also filthy. They sat clinging to each other in a corner, crying softly.
Now this was back in the days before domestic violence was a serious crime. I had seen this a hundred times. You would ask the woman if she would be willing to press charges. The answer would inevitably be, "No, I just want him to leave for a little while."
We would explain that we would ask him to leave, and if he was willing, there was no problem.. If not, we were unable to make him leave his residence. Many times we would leave without the situation being resolved, and would return later to a tragic situation.
The state has now in its infinite wisdom overreacted as usual, and taken the discretion away from the officer. At present, if there is any complaint or evidence of domestic violence, including threats, the accused gets arrested and must stay in jail for 24 hours without the benefit of a bond. So what happens, is the guy stews for twenty-four hours, comes back, really pissed off and either beats his wife some more or kills her.
