American Cop Show

Bad boys, bad boys!
I was just now watching one of those 'real life' cop TV shows where they follow actual cops around with a camera. It was Colorado. The cops got a call to a 'domestic'. They go to an apartment and knock on the door.

A woman answers the door. She called, apparently. The cops walk in. There is crap all over the apartment. But the woman doesn't look ruffled at all. Even her hair is perfect.

The cops immediately ask "Where is he?"

She says "he isn't here. I don't need you. I'm OK. He left. I don't need you."

The cops ignore her and search every room until they find a man. They start yelling at him "put your hands where I can see them! Keep your hands where I can see them!"

They immediately handcuff the man and start taking him outside to their car. As they drag him outside they're asking him what happened.

"Nothing happened. She went to some bachelor party and did something with some guy. I didn't like it, so I told her so. But I never touched her."

The man's face is beat to hell. His cheek is bleeding and one of his eyes is swollen and black. He has no shirt and looks like he's been attacked by a mountain lion.

They take him to the patrol car and stop there, holding him next to the car while he is still in handcuffs. Then they turn on the woman.

She doesn't have a scratch on her. Not a mark. Her hair isn't even messed up.

"How many times did he hit you?" the office in charge screams at her.

"He never hit me."

"I never touched her, officer," the man says.

"You shut up!" the officer in charge shouts at the man. Then he turns back on the woman, barking at her. "Where did he hit you? How many times did he hit you? You have a responsiblity to protect that child up there. We can take that child from you. Where did he hit you? How many times did he hit you?"

"He never hit me! I hit him!" she shouts in obvious frustration.

"He never hit you? Did he ever push you? Did he ever touch you?"

"No, he never pushed me."

"You are caught in a cycle of violence," he shouts at her as he leans in until he's right up in her face, nose to nose. "He will only get worse until he hurts you and that child! You have an obligation to protect that child! Where did he hit you? Where did he push you? He hit you, didn't he?"

"He never hit me," she responds, leaning away from the officer.

"He touched you? Did he touch you?"

"He touched me once." By this point the formerly calm woman is starting to cry. The police are upsetting her more and more, scaring her by mentioning the child.

"Where did he touch you?"

"Touched me? He touched me once on my shoulder. Right here," she said, pointing to her right shoulder, crying and seemingly in fear of the police officer.

"He TOUCHED your shoulder?" the officer demands.

"Yes, right there," she repeats. "He just touched me."

"That's all we need," he said, turning to the officer standing next to the battered man.

Then they threw the man with the battered and bloody face into the car, telling him he's a wife beater and he is being charged him with domestic violence.

The woman without a mark on her begins to cry much harder at this point.

Then the officer turns on her again. "You need to get counseling about being a victim! You need to get help to protect you. This will happen again and it will only get worse."

The officer then says to the camera, "we are taking him to jail. He is going to be made to get counseling to face the fact that he is an abuser. He is an abuser and he will only get worse without help."

They drive away with the battered husband in handcuffs in the back of their patrol car while his wife, the woman who pummeled his face into a bloody mess, stands now crying her eyes out in the parking lot, watching the father of her child being taken away to jail for touching her shoulder while she pounded him in the face.


Dating in the 21st century
One of them certainly does have a problem. One of them probably is going to get much worse. Especially since one of them, the one who did all the hitting and the punching, is going to be constantly told that they are the 'real victim' and need to go find a taxpayer-funded government counselor to 'help' them learn all about how to view themself as the victim even as their fists continue to pound their spouse into a bloody mess again and again. And any time the target of their fists says or does anything they don't like for any reason, they will simply pick up the phone and threaten him with the police and jail as punishment for daring to defy them, keeping him perpetually under their thumb until he either snaps and kills, or packs up his things and leaves for good.

Of course, even if he does leave, the police will continue to hound him. He's a dead-beat dad the minute he flees the abusive situation, unless he takes the child with him, in which case every woman in America will be asked to help the police hunt him down for daring to "kidnap" his own child from a violent, abusive home. And they will help hunt him down. Because CNN will tell them over and over again that he was arrested for domestic violence. HE is the abuser. SHE is the victim. It must be so because he was the one the police arrested and the police aren't suppose to arrest victims, only criminals.

They aren't supposed to, but sometimes they do.


Oh Lucy! You Gotta Lotta 'Splainin To Do