7-13-2022 – A Word to the Wise – Domestic violence Counseling, and prayer
Up to this point I had just ignored family violence. I put many in jail because of it but did not really pursue it in counseling. I said in the beginning I tried to avoid the issue. Why? When I was four, I remember standing out on the sidewalk early one evening when a squad car drove up. Two police officer got out and one said in a gentle voice it’s about time you go home. They went into my parents’ home. When I was 10 my brother sister and I stood outside a home with a large picture window inside my mother and stepfather were having a knock down fight. She broke virtually everything made of glass, pictures, cups, pictures, lamps. Going in after the fight glass was everywhere. When I was 11 my mother stepped between two of her drunk brothers fighting and received a deep 8 inch cut to her arm. I compressed it to stop the bleeding while going to the hospital. When I was 15 my mother told me that one of my aunts had been murdered by her husband. So domestic violence is very personal to me.
So, I just avoided the issue until the following incident.
Element 311, March 1985
The March wind howls through the trees. Its 11:00 p.m. My partner and I get off in 30 minutes and we are both weary. It has been a full moon Friday night. ‘311, Signal 6 (Disturbance) 2722 Hatcher Street, apartment 231, woman calling for help.’ ‘Received.’ We waited a moment to see if night watch elements would take the call. They didn’t. So we started for the location.
It only takes a few minutes for we are near Second Ave. We pull up in front of the apartment. These are a series of old barrack two style apartments. All seems quiet. It is ice cold with a blowing cold wind. We climb the stairs; I am in the lead. It is a very narrow stairway room for only one at a time. Stopping at the top of the stairs, the cold wind howls. Almost with nowhere to stand I listen for a few seconds but hear nothing. I bang on the door with my flashlight. ‘Police.’
Then shortly I hear a voice say, ‘what you want’. Police, open the door we need to talk to you.’ A black male, 5’8, opens the door. He has no shirt on. Dressed only in a pair of jeans. He is sweating profusely. Actually, water is flowing out of his pores. Now it is really cold on the stairs, and he is sweating!
He seems very agitated. I ask him to have his wife come to the door. He said, ‘she is not here.’ ‘Sir we got a call of a woman calling for help.’ ‘Sorry she is not here she went to the store.’ While he is talking, I notice the cuts over both his hands.
I notice a small trash can near the doorway with glass and blood in it. I observe that the suspect has cut marks on his hands and chest so I tell him we need to step inside that it is cold, I will do a quick walk through and if she is not here, we will leave.
He reluctantly lets us in. My partner talks to him at the front door while I walk through. It is my experience in this complex that most of the apartments are filthy and overrun with roaches often dropping down from the ceiling onto back of the neck. This apartment is different. It is dark the lights are out except for a night light at the end of the hall. It appears unusually clean.
I check the first door on the right. It’s a bedroom and there are two children asleep in the bed. That is a good sign. I walk to the back bedroom, it is clean, the bed still made. I notice that there is a woman’s purse on the bed. This woman did not leave without her purse.
“Partner there is a woman’s purse here on the bed.” I then check the bathroom. Turn on the light and gasp. There is blood and glass in the sink and on the floor all over the mirror.
Then I walk back towards the kitchen and stumble over an ironing board. I turn on the lights. I cringe. The sight is unbelievable. It looks likes a scene out of the movie Nightmare on Elm Street.”
There is blood everywhere. All over the fridge, down the front and sides. All over the stove, blood everywhere, all over the kitchen table, the walls, everywhere is blood and glass. Partner, cuff him I shout.
There is an ironing board with an iron setting on it both covered with blood, and black hair and pieces of brain matter.
Partner go check the bathroom and the kitchen. I turn to the suspect, ‘where is she?’ ‘Who, your wife, stupid.’ ‘She went to the store.’ ‘Without her purse, no she did not, where is she?
My partner comes back and takes over the interview I go back to the kitchen and open the backdoor. There is blood on the stairs and more glass. The railing is blood soaked all the way down. I follow the trail of blood and glass. But no sign of the woman. I return to the interview.
My partner talks to the suspect and convinces him to tell us what happens perhaps she is still alive. Finally, he gives it up and talks about the fight and how he carried her body down and put her in the car and drove it down the alley.
My partner takes him to look for the car. I wait inside with the sleeping children. We get a call apparently another element is assigned a call a couple of blocks away, a woman is found in a car, and had fallen against the steering wheel and is sounding the horn. She is still alive! They called for an ambulance. We arrest the suspect and take him to jail. Family comes to stay with the kids. Apparently, they had gotten in a fight, and he beat her with the iron.
Of all the experiences this one has lived in my memory. Vivid recollections of the handprints in blood on the walls and appliances come alive every time I watch certain television programs. While the movies are dressed up scenes, this scene is real, and vivid, and tells the story of man’s inhumanity.
Counseling? In my opinion is useless when it comes to family violence. You may try to save the person by giving them all sorts of warnings and suggestion however most of the time it falls on deaf ears. All the research tells us that violent men do not change their behavior.
So, what does a counselor do? First get their head out of the sand. Some of the first questions I ask now have to do with family violence. By now you know I am crazy about assignments. Every woman who crosses my path I now tell to read the first two chapters of The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker. God gave each of us a special gift of fear that is totally different than anxiety. It is there to warn us. If we neglect the warning what befalls us is on us. This author has done threat analysis for the Secret Service, he knows the warning signs.
Next, I tell them before God they have a responsibility to protect their children. If they fail to do that the Lord will hold them responsible. If they have been strangled in the past, I talk at length about the probably of dying at their spouses’ hands. If they will not divorce them, while they still have the ability to leave. If they are Christians, they are not allowed to hide behind any of false interpretations of Jesus teaching. He was never taught nor taught, nor believed that it was godly to not protect one’s family.
So, the solution is education? Not hardly. It should be apparent by looking at the war on drugs and numerous hours spent on trying to educate teens about the harmful effects and the failure of education. Instead of a reduction in drug use there was a big jump in their use. Where then does prayer come in? A better question is why is prayer ineffective in dealing violence? What are we saying? Prayer is of no effect in dealing domestic violence. Why would you possible say that? The Lord has provided solutions but, in most cases, many absolutely refuse to follow the Lord’s instructions. What instructions? Romans 13 is clear. We are under the laws of the state in which we live. The laws of this state are very clear as well as the other 49 States. You bring charges against the offender, and you do not withdraw the case. If that fails, not because you have failed to obey the laws then you pray, and the Lord hears.
One of the most effective assignments I give is to film, record inappropriate behavior. Most refuse the assignment. Those that do the assignment find most of the time the behavior stops. That is what the Lord told me to do about it. Why is it effective? Violent people for the most part do not want their behavior available to the church or general public to see.
What is missing in the violent person? The element of empathy. They consider the person they are violent to the cause of the problem. They will always say “If” then I would not have. Very few go to prison. If in prison, then they become the victim then on rare occasion they may develop a sense of empathy. One may ask cannot the Lord change them? The Lord gives us free will. He may influence our will but will not rob us of our will.
Consider the concentration camps of World War II. How many of those guards took responsibility for what they were doing? Behold the victim who to the bitter end remained victim. Only one or perhaps two instances in ten years of the existence of those camps that the prisoners who outnumbered the guards, resisted. Even today behold the host of excuses the woman gives for remaining in the violent home and subjecting her own children to the violence.
So, what can one expect the counselor to do? What does the Lord do? It is a failure on the part of the passive person to seek and not follow God’s directives. The Lord provides a way out and what is that? Leave the abuser, charged the abuser, or, if necessary, under certain circumstances kill the abuser to protect your children, but make absolutely sure you are in the right before God. Afterwards pray.
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