Backing the Blue

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Vēritās
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Backing the Blue

Post by Vēritās »

As most of you probably know, in February of 2019 my wife was diagnosed with Leukemia. She had to undergo several years of chemotherapy which basically poisoned her body. The hardest dosages were given to her during the first year when she lost all her hair. It was very difficult watching her deteriorate right before me the way she did but the doctors assured us it was necessary. Even when her blood results came back with a perfect white cell/red cell count, they said they needed to "up the voltage" so to speak to make sure it stays that way. Basically, they had to keep hitting her with chemo at the highest level which her body could withstand, which is why they were constantly measuring her liver to determine if it was too much or not. There are many negative side effects to receiving so much chemo, but one of them is called "Chemo Brain."

I had never heard of this before and the doctors weren't very good at informing us on all the possible side effects that we should expect to encounter. Chemo brain is basically the brain being negatively affected by the poison, and it can manifest itself in many ways, all depending on hormone levels as well as the types of drugs she is taking with it. So, about 9 months into her treatment she had a very bad episode of chemo brain and because I was unaware of what this could be, I just assumed she was having a psychotic break of some sort. We were driving back from the consulate to update my daughter's passport, and on the way back home it hit her hard. She started saying things that made no sense to us and she began to be physically violent. This was on Halloween of all days, and it was getting dark and it was raining very hard. I didn't really know how to react so I began recording her on my cell phone so I could later show the doctor what was happening. My daughter was in the backseat crying and when my wife saw that I had my cell phone by my left thigh, she realized I was recording, grabbed it and threw it out of her window. I immediately stopped the car, tried to calm her down, and then ran back to pick up my phone. When I turned around, she had jumped into the driver's side and started driving off in a hurry.

So, I panicked obviously. She was acting irrationally and I knew it was drug related, but even worse, it was raining hard, she cannot drive at night because of her cataract issues, and she had my daughter in the backseat. So what did I do? I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

I called 911.

I explained the situation to the operator and asked if they could send someone to look for our car because my wife is mentally unstable from the cancer treatments and she also has our 14 year old daughter in the backseat. They had a police cruiser meet me about 5 minutes later. I explained the entire situation again to the two policemen, and they asked me if she was physically violent while I was driving. I said yes, but only to emphasize how much the drugs had affected her because she's never violent like that. I said I only called because she cannot be driving in her condition and I was hoping someone could just pull her over and wait for me to arrive.

Well, apparently they had already pulled her over. She had already taken our daughter home, and she decided to go driving on her own. They pulled her over about a mile away from our neighborhood at the public library. When I arrived the cops wouldn't allow us to speak together. They were trying to get our stories to see if they matched. I was in the backseat of the cop car for about 20 minutes and I couldn't understand why they were treating her like a criminal. After all, these are supposed to be public servants and the reason I called was for them to help her, not because anyone had broken any laws. But the cops had an ulterior motive. So they asked me for my phone. I asked why. They said they needed to see the video I recorded. I asked why. They said because she engaged in domestic violence. I said that is absurd, and refused to hand over my phone. The officer told me he would confiscate it and I'd probably never get it back if I didn't hand it over willingly. So I did after another few minutes of protesting. And there on video was my wife screaming a bunch of incoherent nonsense, clearly suffering from some kind of chemo-induced psychotic episode. But the video also showed her punching my shoulder once. From a weak, tiny woman in her frail condition, it had the force of 3 lb bag of cotton. But the "punch," that was all they wanted to see. I told them I wasn't pressing charges and they said in Georgia the victims don't have that choice.

So they arrested my wife immediately and cuffed her right there in the parking lot as several neighbor friends drove by and witnessed it. It was horribly traumatic and embarrassing. It was a Friday night. It was Halloween. The kids were at home waiting for us to go trick or treating and I show up late without Mommy. The police told me I could go bail her out that same night, but they were lying to me and they knew it.

They knew that in cases of "domestic violence," bail cannot be issued until a judge looks over the case and agrees to it, and because it was after 5pm on a Friday, that meant no judge would be available until the next week. So I knew at that point my wife would spend the entire weekend in jail. I begged the policemen not to do this. I told them over and over, "what kind of people are you to arrest someone so frail and weak who is suffering not only cancer, but the poison of chemotherapy"? They didn't care. They wanted credit for their "collar" and they got it. Worst of all was when I arrived to the detention center within an hour to make sure she was getting all of her meds that she needed to take. For many months she had been taking 11 types of drugs, three of them were required just for her to be able to sleep. The "doctor" who met me at the counter looked at all of the bottles and set aside 8 of them, saying those weren't allowed and said they weren't necessary anyway. I was like, are you damned kidding me? He wasn't an oncologist, just some general physician who worked at the jail. He wasn't even paying much attention to what he was reading. He was gossiping with some of the female officers behind him while occasionally looking at a label on a bottle before moving it aside.

So she was tortured in this detention center for four nights, never once getting a wink of sleep and never once taking a bite of food because she said it was disgusting. They did separate her from the crowd because of her special medical needs, but they didn't allow her to take all of her prescribed medications. My wife told me about the horror of it all later and the experience of it all, it traumatized her for months. She was so weak while in that tiny cell, she once fell on the floor and she wasn't able to pick herself up. She couldn't even lift her head up because she had no strength in her neck. She cried outload for hours, "Please, somebody help me, please." Eventually, some lady slammed the door open which smacked her in the side of the head leaving a welt. She screamed back, "Shut the F up lady. You want another knock to your head? Then keep crying!"

Monday arrived and no judge was available. When I finally was able to go there to see her go before a judge on Tuesday, the judge saw my beautiful wife with her balding head, her baggy eyes from getting zero sleep, the scar on the side of her head, and immediately ordered her to be released into my care. It looked like he was about to cry himself after telling his story about how his own wife died from cancer.

So.

Back the Blue? “F” no. Not me. Not until we get meaningful changes.

Should we defund the police?

How about this, instead. How about we provide more funding, a lot more funding, for the police to handle special situations like these?

Until changes are made in how we police and "serve" the public in need, I will never call 911 again. For any reason. I don't trust cops. Not after this situation happened to us, and not after the way they treated my daughter when she crashed her car (another story for another day perhaps).
"I am not an American ... In my view premarital sex should be illegal ...(there are) mentally challenged people with special needs like myself- Ajax18
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Res Ipsa
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Res Ipsa »

Jesus, Veritas. I’m truly sorry that you and your wife were treated in that manner. That’s horrifying.

The police are not equipped to respond to people in mental health crises. I would happily pay tax dollars to train them properly so that they can respond to mental health crises in a manner that doesn’t wind up killing people or detaining people who need medical/psychiatric intervention.

Alternatively, I would gladly support removing responsibility for mental health crises from the police and giving them to mental health professionals trained to properly handle those situations.

Nobody should be treated the way your wife was treated. Full stop.
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ajax18
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by ajax18 »

Oddly enough I completely empathize with Veritas on this. Most Americans will never come up against a worse enemy than their own government. But his blame is misplaced. Elected and appointed officials are responsible for these policies. The "blue" are just following orders from the Department of Injustice.

Google the story of a school principal who killed himelf after losing his career when his wife mistakenly called the police in an act of vengeance which she immediately regretted. It didn't matter that the wife didn't want to press charges. When police have to come out someone is going to pay dearly.
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
Vēritās
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Vēritās »

ajax18 wrote:
Sun Dec 18, 2022 2:57 pm
Oddly enough I completely empathize with Veritas on this. Most Americans will never come up against a worse enemy than their own government.
And yet, you choose to back the blue no matter what while criticizing those of us who point out valid reasons why we shouldn't.
But his blame is misplaced. Elected and appointed officials are responsible for these policies. The "blue" are just following orders from the Department of Injustice.
Man you are so out of touch with reality. The culture within police departments is one that in created from within the group, and it has festered in departments across this country for decades. It has absolutely nothing to do with "policies." These departments hire people who have no business being in positions of authority. Many of these folks just want to feel empowered and want to belong to a group, and so the cult is created which is why we find out that some departments in rural areas have Qanon and even KKK members associated with it. The vetting process needs to be refined and become far stricter. If this means paying more money for people with the required backgrounds, then so be it.
Google the story of a school principal who killed himelf after losing his career when his wife mistakenly called the police in an act of vengeance which she immediately regretted. It didn't matter that the wife didn't want to press charges. When police have to come out someone is going to pay dearly.
And this is because of which "policy" exactly? It is because of State laws that say all domestic violence issues must result in an arrest no matter the circumstances and also, it is this culture within the departments where policemen just want to notch another arrest on their record.
"I am not an American ... In my view premarital sex should be illegal ...(there are) mentally challenged people with special needs like myself- Ajax18
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ajax18
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by ajax18 »

Well I guess we find ourselves as very strange bedfellows on this issue because I agree with you that this case you described is not only outrageous but sadly a case where truth is stranger than fiction. I'd never dare call 911 either. What you don't understand is that the reason this happened to you is because you have money there for the government to take and profit from in this situation. You pushed, advocated, and voted for the very policies that created these unintended consequences. Can you demonstrate to me again how you benefited from white privilege in this encounter with the police?
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
Vēritās
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Vēritās »

Last year I bought my daughter a car for her 17th birthday. A month later she crashed it a mile outside our neighborhood. She wasn't supposed to be driving at the time, it was dark and wet and she was showing off for her friends. She called me to tell me what happened and I arrived on the scene and noticed a few kids were in the street had also been in the car.

She was coming down a residential hill too fast in wet conditions and tried to turn right as the road curved, but a truck was parked on the corner of the left side of the street and she didn't realize it until it was too late. She swerved around it and then hit the curb. The car went airborne and she clipped a porta-potty in a lot where a home was under construction. It rolled down into the driveway of another residence and after the car bounced, it ended up in the middle of the street. After the accident, the neighbor ran out to move the truck from the road and parked it in the garage where it should have been in the first place, because it was likely illegally parked there.

I noticed some neighbors were standing in the yards saying they had called the cops, to which I responded, "Ok thanks." So, I called State Farm insurance so they could send a wrecker to have the car moved out of the street. Within a few minutes a cop arrived. He asked me who was driving and I told him my daughter. He asked me why I didn't call the police, and I told him the neighbor said they already did. He said, "Well they didn't" and I was like, then why are you here if no one called? He didn't respond. He was a little skinny prick who never made eye contact with me and was running around trying to assess the situation. At the same time a cop who happened to live a few houses down came out and he acted like he was taking charge by walking me through the situation and explaining how it all happened based on the evidence of the cracked curb and the damage done to the lot. The other cop walked by me and told the retired officer that I came to the scene to try covering it up! At which point I got vocally aggressive with him. "Are you Effing kidding me?! I told you I just arrived and called the insurance company first because the neighbors had said they already called you." I then said some other choice words like, "Don't you have something better to do with my tax dollars than drudge up baseless theories that incriminate the innocent?" A couple of neighbor friends of mine had just arrived on the scene too and they were holding me back telling me I could get arrested. I would find out a few weeks later from an attorney friend of ours that the entire police department had described this incident as one in which the parents tried to cover up the crime scene!

So anyway, the retired officer seemed perturbed that I didn't appear upset enough with my daughter, at which point I said, "Oh trust me, I'm beyond upset. I'm in a state of disbelief right now. I just bought her that car for her 17th birthday just last month and you think I'm not pissed?" At that point his attitude changed with me because he realized I was a parent who was just as upset with his kid as anyone else would be. What he seemed to be more concerned with was her getting off with just a wrist slap. He told me that if it were up to him he would be taking her to jail because she could have killed herself along with all the kids in the car. That's true, but I think he was just trying to scare my daughter more than anything while at the same time trying to explain to her how lucky she was to still be alive. At that point he and I were on the same page and we both began to explain the gravity of the situation. She went airborne and he had drawn a map of how it all happened (he was very good at this) and showed how the car came down directly on a piece of iron rebar that was sticking up out of the ground, and had that hit the battery of the car all of them would have likely burned alive. My daughter was in tears at that point and I think we got the message across to her as well as we could. Even though he wasn't the officer in charge, he did all the talking and started treating us like actual human beings. But the other cop, who had to make the decision on what to do, decided to write her up for four different tickets. I was just happy they weren't taking her to jail. He kept asking her how many kids were in the car but she honestly didn't know because it was a spontaneous thing where she rode to the top of the hill and the triplets up the street got in the car but then other kids who happened to be at their house started piling in as well and they just said, "go go go show us how fast it goes." She knew there were at least three but uncertain who else was in the back.

So, my wife came and picked up my daughter and I stayed and talked with the retired guy for another 20 minutes or so. I stayed parked by the car until 1am waiting for the wrecker to arrive and it never did. But before leaving, the cop came up to my car again and asked me to put down the window. He said, "I'm going to have to go arrest your daughter because she lied to me." I was like, WTF? Everyone had already left two hours ago and she is probably in bed, so I asked, "Lied about what?" He said, "I have been investigating the past two hours knocking doors and talking to neighbors and one neighbor said she saw six kids get out of the car after the crash." I told him she didn't lie to him, she very clearly told him she didn't know who all was in the car. I also told him that it is unlikely some neighbor knew exactly how many people were in the car. No one was outside at the time and no one saw the accident except for those who were in the care, so why take the word of some neighbor who could be exaggerating?

Anyway, this story isn't nearly as traumatic as the first, but it does give me one more reason not to trust the city police in my town. After speaking to the attorney he said the cop was bluffing all along because there was no basis for arresting her. No other car was involved and no one was injured and she didn't leave the scene of the accident. We later find out a retired member of law enforcement was renting the basement from his Mom's house in our neighborhood and he was quick to spread the false rumors to our neighbors that we were trying to cover up a crime scene to protect our daughter.
"I am not an American ... In my view premarital sex should be illegal ...(there are) mentally challenged people with special needs like myself- Ajax18
Vēritās
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Vēritās »

ajax18 wrote:
Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:32 pm
Well I guess we find ourselves as very strange bedfellows on this issue because I agree with you that this case you described is not only outrageous but sadly a case where truth is stranger than fiction. I'd never dare call 911 either. What you don't understand is that the reason this happened to you is because you have money there for the government to take and profit from in this situation. You pushed, advocated, and voted for the very policies that created these unintended consequences. Can you demonstrate to me again how you benefited from white privilege in this encounter with the police?
Still waiting for you to explain which policies you're alluding to. I live in a blood red county that went 78% for Trump and 70% Walker. This was the home of some of the largest Tea Parties during the Obama administration. If any policies are in force, they're likely from Republican legislators.

And yes, we likely benefited from white privilege in the case of my daughter when all four of her tickets were dropped. Of course, our attorney died six weeks before the court hearing so maybe the judge showed sympathy over that.
"I am not an American ... In my view premarital sex should be illegal ...(there are) mentally challenged people with special needs like myself- Ajax18
Dr Exiled
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Dr Exiled »

This was a horrible thing you went through with your wife and daughter. I feel for her having to spend those days in jail. Here in Clark County, Nevada there are judges that work weekends to review these cases and dole out restraining orders and so the time spent in jail isn't as long as it was for your wife.

I don't know how to change the domestic violence system to avoid these types of incidences. Cops arrest people when there is probable cause to do so. In your case, telling the 911 operator what happened and letting the cops know that you had it recorded let the genie out of the bag. They were going to arrest her at that point. Also, its common for the alleged victim to protest the arrest decision and the cops are trained to not listen to these protests once probable cause is determined initially. However, looks like the Judge properly reviewed the matter and let her out. Were there any charges filed by the District Attorney? I hope there weren't.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Joshua »

Vēritās wrote:
Sat Dec 17, 2022 10:31 pm
As most of you probably know, in February of 2019 my wife was diagnosed with Leukemia. [SNIP!] I don't trust cops. Not after this situation happened to us, and not after the way they treated my daughter when she crashed her car (another story for another day perhaps).
To better comprehend that it was your fault and not the fault of the police that your wife was in jail, I recommend reading your own post several times. Your wife's incarceration was a result of terrible mistakes you committed. Let's recap. Your wife begins to experience a psychotic breakdown as you are driving in the dark and heavy rain, however, instead of keeping both hands on the wheel and continuing to drive to safety, you decide to record her breakdown so you can show your doctor, that's fxxxxx up. Then, your wife tosses your phone out the window, and once more you don't put your wife's needs before your own by stopping on the side of the road in the pouring rain to retrieve your phone. That's a very Millennial move. The worst part is yet to come, you exit the vehicle and leave the keys with a woman who is plainly experiencing a psychotic episode.

How did you anticipate the cops to respond? Every day, all day long, almost everyone they interact with lies to them. You somehow believe that because you appeared and "truthfully" describe the situation, they must let your wife go after she assaulted you and may have operated a vehicle while under the influence of Narcotics, which you revealed to them may have contributed to her having a psychotic episode. Really, are you that ignorant?
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Re: Backing the Blue

Post by Joshua »

Veritas, maybe you should run for Sheriff so you can teach all the clueless law enforcement personnel in your region how to conduct effective community policing. Obviously you think you could do their job better than them, prove it!
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