When my state got a new governor, among his first targets was domestic violence funding. Budgets were slashed. Programs were cut. And just like that,
When my state got a new governor, among his first targets was domestic violence funding. Budgets were slashed. Programs were cut. And just like that, part of my grant disappeared.
In the scramble, I found myself a breath away from being assigned to facilitate child custody exchanges. It would be safe—it would be at the police station.
Something in my spirit was unsettled and nothing would bring it back to a state of peace around this issue.
I prayed about it. For me prayer brings clarity and helps me to notice folks I hadn’t previously.
So that took me to “Randy.” Someone I saw often but we never spoke to one another before.
A retired cop turned lawyer that I had seen in the courthouse where I would accompany victims to cases but he wasn’t much of a casual talker.
Randy was a man like a mountain, who carried the air of someone living off a back road no one could find.
Quiet. Introverted. Watchful. Intelligent. Gentle giant.
Seen him around, but never spoken to him. Until then.
When I told him what was being considered—that I would be standing in the middle of custody exchanges at the town police station—he took off his glasses, looked down at me, and said:
“Say that again.”
I repeated it.
He shifted his head, tired already.
“Are they going to give you a gun? Training on how to use it if you have to?” he asked.
That’s how I learned what every officer knows: domestic violence calls are the most dangerous calls a cop can get. They are armed, trained, go in pairs, and still, too many don’t make it home. They go in pairs for a reason.
And there I was, a young, idealistic advocate, being presented with the choice to step into the most volatile moment of people’s lives—unarmed, untrained, and alone.
Imagine How Women Feel
When police officers—the ones with badges, high tech aids, human “brotherhood” backup, and weapons—know that domestic violence is deadly ground…
Imagine how women feel.
Imagine the fear of walking back into a home where danger lives.
Imagine the calculation of every word, every glance, knowing it could set someone off.
Imagine knowing that the same volatility that kills officers is the volatility you-your children- may be living with every single day.
Women don’t get to clock out, turn off the radio, or call for reinforcements. They live it in real time, often with children watching, often with no escape hatch.
When he loses control, she is in even more danger. And she knows it.
The Lesson
That day, -Randy’s weary, stern, yet kind as he could be about it given how I was literally playing with dynamite -questions told me what my gut already knew (wasn’t listening or self-trusting, too young, naive, and idealistic): this “solution” wasn’t safe. Even superheroes have limits. And I am just human. I had not thought this thing through. I couldn’t do it.
As much as the community needed that service, I refused to be another unarmed body in the crossfire of a system that too often pretends danger doesn’t exist until tragedy forces it into the news.
This community was then, a predominately upper middle class white community. I was probably the third person hired. We were all there in the center within maybe less than ten years. It was a new service at the time in the early 2000’s. That community needed that service prior to my conception.
I still love visiting the county for food, the drive, and love as I pass through to the city where I grew up further south.
Final Word
All victims, the fallen, and the serial murderer are white so it is not in danger of being used to advance racism.
So we can focus on what women face every day in silence.
We can focus on the danger that lives in plain sight, in homes that look ordinary from the outside.
If the most trained professionals call it the most dangerous call of all—
then maybe the world should finally stop asking women to survive it alone.
As we add even more people to the ever growing roster of mourners who have lost loved ones due to gun violence and domestic violence….we extend our deepest and sincere sympathies and condolences.