AnnieMae
Policy Enforcement
I am the SHE that was arrested. My ex pulled a gun on me, I called the cops, and I was arrested. He even told me later that it was because he had a “connection” at the police station. The person he told me about didn’t exist. He told the police that he never pulled the gun out. I knew him for 7 years and didn’t even know he owned a gun. I was charged with domestic violence and Had to pay a ton of money for all of this. The worst thing about it are the nightmares. After it happened, I had nightmares for a loooong time. Still do and It’s been 5 years. At one point, I didn’t sleep for days because every time I would start to fall asleep, I would have nightmares of him attacking me, trying to kill me. I struggle on a daily basis on who I can and cannot trust and with my identity because of this. I go to therapy to try to not freak out on people all the time. I just hope that at some point in my life, I can have a normal life again, and maybe, I can get the charge expunged. I wanted to meet someone, have a family, etc, but now I struggle with dating. I feel like that person will think I am an awful person. It’s just unreal. When we got married, his whole family warned me not to date him, including his friends. I thought they were all joking.The double standard is alive and well and something that cops and dispatchers struggled to understand. It's surprising for the trainees to realize that the 911 call comes in from the male half, that he is the one being abused, because society teaches us that it doesn't happen that way. We had to do a lot of training for our trainees to get them out of that mindset and to understand that yes, DV happens with men as the victim. Many of the cops I worked with talked about that too. I live in a mandatory arrest state - which means someone goes to jail in any DV call. The officers sometimes had a hard time wrapping their minds around the concept that the 5 foot tall wife was the person who beat up the 6 foot tall guy and SHE needed to be arrested. But it happened. A lot more than anyone realized.
It is changing though -- because of conversations like this and men's willingness to come forward and say that it isn't right that they don't get the help they need. Changing slowly -- but changing.