I know some people will not believe one person could have went through all this and that is ok because I know the pain and fear, I have lived with it throughout my life is real. If you do not believe that is on you not me. I know the truth as I live through it every day. In this writing, I am writing about the three negative things dealing with police officers and how I have overcome some of the fears from them. It was originally over 20 written pages so while I type this up, I will cut some of it out.
When I was a little kid, I witnessed the shooting of a teenager. I remember that morning like it was yesterday. I have journal entries of more details. The answers to so many questions will never be answered until she is found and given a proper funeral. It has been 37 years, so I am not holding my breath on that one. The complete truth will never be revealed because the police have always known 100% who committed the crime and will not listen to anyone who has information that says otherwise. I know because they have lost my eyewitness statements twice. This was when I started my fear of police officers, because I saw the woman who shot her in uniform days later showing the older kids a cop car. I learned throughout this time that police could not be trusted. The police in my hometown do not care what the truth is since they finally got a conviction on the person, they knew did it all along. I still have days where I blame myself for not doing enough to help her. I question myself many times on if I would have done more would she have lived? Would she have been found by now? Would the truth of what happened that morning be out there? I blame myself for not doing what an adult should have done back then, but I must remind myself that I was just a kid. It was not my fault that the adults around me either did not want to hear it or did not want me to be involved, but I was involved the second I saw her running and the fear in her eyes when she saw my friend and I. It is something you never forget. The lesson learned that there is no one to protect you from those who are supposed to protect you.
Fast forward to October 1986, I came in from recess to use the restroom. Someone grabbed me from behind with a knife to my throat. He pulled me into the bathroom and even though I knew my principal and a police officer were close by no one came to help when I screamed. He warned me that he would use the knife if I did not stop screaming and he did. I am reminded every day when I get ready because the scar is right there. That scar reminds me of what police officers get by with. I remember feeling his badge, seeing him unbuckling his pants, and the sound of his zipper. I will not go into details of what happened next, but I remember the pain and the fear he caused that day. His partner was just as bad on teaching me the lessons I lived by for most of my life. The partner stopped him from hurting me more physically and sexually, but emotionally – the fear – he caused me will last a lifetime. While he was stopping the bleeding, he held his badge to my face and said, “see this this is what allows us to do what we want when we want because everyone with one will protect each other.” They said, “Nobody will believe you so just go play like a good girl because nothing happened that’s what you need to remember nothing happened.” I wish I could forget the lessons I learned that day, but no matter how much I try I cannot forget. My mom confirmed that I had to go to the doctors during this time frame for bleeding from rectum, and the doctor ruled it as an anal fissure.
So, by the time I was 10 years old, I had learned many valuable lessons in life. 1. Adults do not listen or protect kids, 2. Police officers do not listen or protect kids, and 3. Police officers can do what they want when they want because of the badge.
Now fast forward to Summer 1993, my friends and I were at the county fair and a police officer told us he would supply the alcohol if we would supply the fun. We kept walking assuming he was just joking around considering we were only 16. However, after getting to know this officer, I realized he probably was not.
In October 1993, I met “Mikey” at least that is what I called him. He locked his keys in his car and asked if I could give him a ride home so he could get his extra pair of keys. He sat behind me and I just wanted him out of my car. I should have listened to myself, but I kept telling myself that it was my past and I should not blame all police officers because of a few. My best friend kept me calm while he was in the house and we discussed how she had known him for a long time. As the days turned into months and years of hanging out with Mikey things got worse. Mikey was 28.5 years older than me, so I sometimes blame myself for being stupid and thinking that he cared. Now keep in mind I have over 2000 written pages of what all happened during my time with Mikey. I was 16 years old when he took the knife off my wrist and saved my life. He listened to everything I had gone through growing up. He was there for me when nobody else was. He was someone I thought I could trust with my life. He met the world to me, and then his true self came out.
I was only 16, when Mikey decided to slowly make the friendship turn sexual. He started touching me in November 1993. He was still very thoughtful about my fears as he knew all of them. It was December 1993 when I turned 17 that the relationship began to get bad. As I got older, he wanted more and more. He would clean his fingernails with a knife just so I would know he had one, he would make sure his gun was where I could see it but only, he could reach it. April 1994, he decided to force me to do things I did not want to do. He had his knife and his gun close by and knew he did not have to say a word because he knew I knew the unspoken threat of what would happen. When I got to my best friend’s house, she listened to me cry and begged me to tell her parents what had happen. My friend understood when I said the words, “No she’s one of them.” My friend kept asking me if he had raped me because she did not want me to take a shower if he had, but a shower was the only thing I wanted at the time. I had answered, “All I know is it hurt, and I thought I was going to die.” After that night when I met up with Mikey he would say “I’m sorry”, “It won’t happened again,” “I’ll never do that again,” “I never meet to hurt you,” or his favorite “You know you enjoyed it.”
The more I was with him the more my life was lived with fear. I had become friends with a lot of officers in my hometown, but only one did not harass me or try to make my life harder after I got brave enough to try to turn him in. By the time I decided to go to Mikey’s chief of police I had pushed away the one officer who would have helped. I felt I had no one. Mikey would threaten me and say things like if I did not do what he wanted that he would make one of my friends do it and I knew he meant it. I did not want my friends to go through what I was going through so I kept hanging out with him until I left for college in 1995. The night I decided to turn him in was the night he had pointed the gun to my head and I fought back some mainly because I didn’t care if he pulled the trigger I begged him to just do it. I was so done with life at that point. I ended up going to the chief of police just to hear the words “I’m tired of you trying to cause trouble for my officers. You are leaving for college soon why don’t you just focus on that and keep your mouth shut, so I don’t have to arrest you for assaulting one of my officers.” I knew then I had no one. Some of the officers would pull me over going 1 mile over the speed limit and say things that made me realize that they knew I had tried to turn one of them in. They would follow me home late at night, just doing their job, when they were city police and I lived out in the country. I had pushed the one who would have helped away and did not trust any of them at this point. I had no one to protect me or at least that is how I felt. There are times when I still blame myself for what happened I kept going back to protect my friends, but no one understands that. Most people back then just saw me hanging out with Mikey they never saw the gun or the pain and fear he caused. Even my best friend’s mom blamed me for what had happened. No one ever understood why I kept hanging out with him, they never had a gun pointed at them or within reach, they never had him threaten their best friend. They never heard the threats and they never learned that valuable lesson that police officer can do what they want when they want because they will be protected. They were always the ones protected in my hometown. No one cared about the victims of the crimes they committed or at least that is how I felt at the time. I am sure if I would have kept talking to the one officer more would have been done, but after all I had gone through, I had pushed everyone with a badge as far as I could.
The pain and fear from the lessons I learned from my hometown police department stayed with me for many years and some will stay with me for a lifetime. It was not until 2003 that I started working through these fears, but it wasn’t until 2004 that I became friends with one again. I no longer blame all police officer for the bad ones in my past. I have learned to trust some but not all. I have learned that just because there are some bad apples in the bag does not mean the whole bag is bad. I will write about my journey of healing another time as this is getting to long, but remember through everything I am able to say I believe that there are police officers, who are good and became police officer due to wanting to help others and protecting people from harm’s way.
Stop Police Sexual Violence 