September 12, 2024 • 38 mins
In this powerful episode, we dive into one of the most critical issues affecting our society today—domestic violence. With 18 years of experience in public safety, Bryan Shearouse shares his deeply personal encounters and insights into the impact domestic violence has on victims, families, and, particularly, children. Bryan discusses the importance of communication, the devastating effects of repeated exposure to violence, and how societal denial often exacerbates the problem.
In addition to sharing stories from his career, Bryan highlights the need for comprehensive mental health support and resources. He introduces the new Breach Your Mind website, which now features a dedicated crisis support page that consolidates vital resources in one easy-to-navigate space, providing help for everyone, from public safety personnel to everyday citizens.
Bryan also discusses the frustrations of repeatedly responding to domestic violence incidents, where children are often the hidden victims, and challenges societal norms that prevent men from reporting abuse. As the episode unfolds, Bryan shares harrowing stories from his time in law enforcement, including one of the worst domestic violence cases he encountered early in his career. His story serves as a stark reminder of the importance of breaking the cycle of violence and doing better as a society.
Join us in this candid conversation as we confront the harsh realities of domestic violence and the hope for change through awareness, resources, and understanding.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Team 1, stand by.
Copy Team 1 standing by Breach,breach, breach.
Hey guys, what's going on?
So welcome back to today's show, or the show.
Today we're going to cover atopic that, in my opinion, it's
(00:26):
an important one.
It's one that I've, because ofmy profession, I've had a great
deal of experience in as far ashandling.
I've seen what it can do tofolks, what it can do to
families, what it does, has done, to our society, and because of
that, I feel like it'simportant to at least talk about
(00:47):
it, and I'm probably not goingto talk about it in the manner
that you're expecting me to.
However, before I get to that,I do have to do some shameless
self-promoting.
I hate doing that just becauseI just don't like doing it.
However, I do need to do alittle something.
(01:08):
So, if you guys have not beento our website lately, we had a
small error a few days ago,completely tore up the site, and
it was a blessing in disguise,because I had the opportunity to
rebuild the webpage, get a lotof things more streamlined, they
(01:28):
flow a lot smoother now and oneof the things that I was
actually most excited about, Iwas actually able to add, along
with bringing some pages thatI'd already created but I lost
because I'm not a code writerand I don't know what I'm doing.
But I was able to get thosepages up and running as well.
Also centralized the podcastpage so you don't have to search
(01:52):
around for where the podcast isif you don't want to Now.
You can just go straight to thewebsite, click on the listen
tab and it brings you up toevery single one of the podcasts
that we've already uploaded, soit's a nice little convenient
place for you to listen to allof them.
But, that being said, the onething that I'm most excited
(02:14):
about is when I looked over thewebsite.
I was looking at it and there'spictures of me and talks of the
podcast and what the podcast isabout and everything like that,
but there was really noresource.
You know I would tell you toreach out to me, email me, hit
us up on the social platforms orwhatever, but even though I was
(02:36):
saying that I'm not a mentalhealth professional, I wasn't
given any guidance to wheresomeone who truly needed
professional help could go.
And what I was able to do andwhat I'm excited about was I was
able to create a resource page.
So I went and found a list ofresources 12 or 13 resources on
(02:59):
this resource page now and everysingle one of them has a
description of what it's for andit's got a hyperlink that'll
take you directly to the websitefor that particular
organization, whether it's thetext line, whether it's 988,
whether it's cop line, and it'snot just public safety, it's not
just military, it is foreveryone.
(03:22):
There are resources availablethere for everyday citizens.
There are resources there thatare specifically dedicated to
those that have dealt with ordeal with the public safety
profession or the military.
To get one place for all of that, because you can go on Google
(03:45):
and you can type in mentalhealth.
You can type in, you know,whatever issue you're thinking
of that pertains to mentalhealth, and it's going to give
you a whole list of differentplaces you could go, and every
one of them have done their SEO,their search engine
optimization.
They've all done that, and thatmakes it much more difficult
(04:07):
for someone who's trying to findhelp.
That makes it more difficultbecause now you're just adding
more fog to what's alreadycluttered in their mind, and
with my resource page, I'm ableto bring all of them into one
place, give a very smalldescription, make it very easy
for the person to reach out toit.
And then, to top that off, onevery single page of the website
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there's a crisis support button.
So off on the left-hand side ofthe page there's a crisis
support button.
It is actually pulsating sothat it is very much visible no
matter where you scroll on thepage, it stays right there.
So if someone is looking at thewebsite and they're seeing what
we have to offer they'relooking at the podcast and
things like that and they kindof feel like maybe I need some
(04:57):
help, or they come there alreadyknowing that they need some
help, they can click that littlepulsating crisis support button
.
It takes you right over to thecrisis support page and then
gives you every one of thoseresources.
All 12 to 13 of those resourcesare right there.
They read through thedescription that are the very
brief description underneath it.
They click on the image and ittakes them right to that
(05:18):
resource.
There's no shifting around totry to figure out where you need
to go.
I put all of that there for you.
I made it easy for you to goand get the help that you need
to get and because of thatfeature alone to me, my website
brings that much more value towhat we're trying to do.
(05:42):
You know I've said before thatyou know what the mission for
this whole thing was was to helppeople through tough times and
everything like that.
And it is.
The mission is to break thestigma that surrounds mental
health, because, especiallythose of us in public safety, we
experience things at such ahigher rate and such a larger
(06:04):
volume than the average citizen,but everybody forgets we're
people too.
We're just human beings, justlike everyone else, and we have
to deal with those same things.
And if anyone thinks that thatstuff doesn't affect us, well
then you're wrong because itdoes.
Everything that we experiencevia someone else affects us, and
(06:29):
then we have to deal with it.
And then, on top of that, wewind up taking that home to our
families, and then how we handlethat at home with our families
can change that whole dynamic.
So we're all people, we're allindividuals and everybody at
times needs a little help withsomething you know, and chances
(06:50):
are you yourself, if you'resitting there saying no, not me,
I've never needed help, I'vegot this thing under control
chances are you've done it,you've needed it and you've done
it and you didn't even realizeit, because the more likely
scenario is that something wasweighing on your heart,
something was weighing on yourmind and you turned to somebody
(07:10):
that you trust and you vented tothem.
Whether you want to admit it ornot, that is also mental health
, because you're having to getthat it.
So, again, you may deny it.
It's understood, especiallythose of us in this profession.
(07:32):
We deny it, we deny that weneed it.
Nope, we're big, strong people.
We don't need it.
We're A-type personalities.
We're good to go, becausethat's what people want to see.
Your teammates don't want tosee you break down.
The public doesn't want to seeyou break down.
So you got to be strong.
So we deny it.
And with that denial can come awhole slew of other issues, and
(07:55):
that's what we're trying tobreak.
That's what the purpose ofBreach your Mind is is to break
that stigma.
And now, because of how we'vedone the website, we're able to,
I guess, push that stigma alittle bit further away.
At least that's my hope.
And, like I said, I'm veryexcited about that crisis
(08:17):
support page and the website ingeneral.
I'm much happier with the wayit looks, the way it flows.
I'm sure, as time goes on,we're going to get more stuff
going on to make it even moreadvertising or not advertising,
but appetizing and moreinteractive.
So we're you know, even thoughwe're a few years into this,
(08:38):
we're really kind of justgetting started.
So, again with the shamelessself-promotion if you haven't
done so, go over tobreachyourmindcom, click around
on the website, click up andsubscribe for the emails or
newsletters.
Trying to get on the newsletterthing, I've never done that
before, so bear with me, butwe're trying to get that going.
(09:01):
So, with that being said, let'sget into today's topic.
Okay, so again, like I saidearlier before I went off on my
little rant about the website,today's topic is one that likely
everybody's had some kind ofexperience with Obviously being
(09:22):
in public safety for 18 years.
I've done it a lot.
It has been probably the breadand butter of everything that
I've done.
When you hear about publicsafety workers having to be
social workers and things likethat, this is why it's things
like domestic violence, it'sthings like domestic disputes
(09:44):
that make us wind up having tobe social workers, because what
we find out, oddly enough, isit's not just alcohol, it's not
just drugs, it's not justinfidelity.
Often enough, it's justcommunication.
There's a breakdown ofcommunication in the home,
whether it's, you know, betweenthe spouse or the spouses,
(10:07):
whether it's between theboyfriend and girlfriend, just
significant others, whatever,even child and parent.
There's a breakdown ofcommunication and because we
don't learn how to communicate,the whole thing falls apart.
And that's where our domesticviolence starts coming from,
obviously, things like alcoholsand alcohol, drug infidelity,
(10:29):
financialist issues.
There's a whole slew of issuesthat contribute to it.
So I'm not trying to say thatcommunication is the only thing.
There's a whole slew of thingsthat contribute to domestic
violence in our country, butcommunication is one of the ones
that I've seen.
The biggest part of thatsubstance abuse and infidelity.
(10:54):
Now, that being said and I don'twant this to come off like I am
trivializing domestic violencebetween adults because I'm not
um, domestic violence betweenadults because I'm not um, and
I'll give you an example of oneof the worst cases of domestic
violence that that I'veexperienced in my career, um,
(11:15):
but while I do, while I doacknowledge and want to address
and we need to work on handlingdomestic violence and want to
address, and we need to work onhandling domestic violence
between adults, the moreimportant topic that I think
there is to bring up in regardsto this is children, and I don't
(11:36):
necessarily mean children beinginvolved in the domestic
violence in the sense of it'sbetween parent and child or it's
between siblings.
I'm talking about child victims, children that are exposed to
domestic violence and have nochoice but to be exposed to it.
(11:57):
Okay, that's a problem in oursociety.
Just a simple Google search,looking up some statistics,
you'll find that between 3 and10 million children a year in
our country experience domesticviolence.
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10 to 20 percent of thechildren in our country
experience domestic violence.
Of the children in our countryexperience domestic violence.
I don't know about y'all.
I grew up in a much differenttime, but I don't know how a
(12:39):
child processes stuff like that.
You know, I've said before thatI come from a split home.
I don't ever remember a timewhen my mom and my dad were
married.
They were divorced for myentire life, as far as I know,
and honestly I never even askedwhen they got divorced after I
was born.
So I never grew up in a singlefamily home or a joint family
home like that.
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I went to my dad every otherweekend and two weeks out of the
summer and stayed with my momthe rest of the time and that
was my life.
But even at that, my parentstook the effort to, even though
they couldn't stand each otherand I learned later on how much
they couldn't stand each otherEven though they didn't like
each other, they made sure thatI knew that they loved me and
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they made sure to keep theirissues between them.
So, even though I grew up in asplit home, I don't understand
what these other children gothrough and I can't imagine what
it's like to go through as anadult, going to these scenes and
working these domestics.
I know, as an adult I don'twant to hear people screaming
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and hollering at one another allthe time, but as a child, as a
helpless child who can't doanything about it, how do they
manage that?
How do you bring a child up ina home that is just riddled with
domestic violence and expectthat child to be okay?
(14:07):
And please don't take this asme pointing fingers or anything
like that, because I've been onthe scenes, I've been in the
homes and I've had it said to me.
You don't understand.
You're right, I don't.
What I do understand is the factthat I've been married for 24
years.
I think it's 24.
Where is it?
(14:28):
Yeah, I've been married for 24years.
I know life's not easy.
I've been married to the samewoman for 24 years and have
raised our children.
We have raised our children andhave grandchildren.
So while I don't know what it'slike, I do know a little
something about something and Iknow how tough life can be, not
(14:52):
just from my own experience, butfrom the job as well.
Again, I'm not trying to pointfingers, I'm not trying to
belittle or make anybody feelbad.
That's not the point of this.
But you have to understand,from a public safety standpoint,
how frustrating it gets attimes when you're at these homes
(15:17):
that are repeated domesticviolence incidents and when you
try to tell people hey, you know, you guys probably should start
thinking about maybe doing somecouples therapy, maybe
separation Look, it's obviouslyyour relationship's not working
out.
Maybe y'all need to go yourseparate ways Until you get to
the point of all right, look, Iunderstand everything you're
(15:38):
saying, but at some point one ofyou has to start taking these
children into consideration.
You have to start realizingthat this is going to affect
those children and take thatinto consideration, because if
you don't, you're causing thosechildren to be victims.
And I get told oh well, you know, I just I stay with them
(16:02):
because of because of.
I stay with them.
I stay with this person becauseof the kids.
Because of the kids.
What do you mean?
You stay with them because ofthe kids.
You're keeping them in atumultuous situation for the
(16:25):
sole purpose that it's for them.
You're keeping them in asituation that is causing them
mental health issues and mentalhealth struggles for them.
I'm not pointing fingers, butI'm going to need that explained
to me a little bit.
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I'm going to need somebody toexplain to me how staying in a
relationship that is unhealthyas the day is long, is for those
children, because the way itcomes off I'm not saying this is
(17:05):
it, but the way it comes off isyou're staying in that
relationship for yourself andusing the children as a reason
to hold on.
Not saying that's the case,just saying that that's how it
comes off To those of us on theoutside that don't know that's
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how it comes off.
And then I hear well, you don'tunderstand how hard it is, I've
got no place to go.
You're right, I don't knowthose things, but I always have
a list of resources that I cangive you.
Talk to a victim witnessprogram.
There are safe shelters, andthat's the one that really
(17:51):
upsets me as I tell people okay,well, if you don't feel safe
here, you can go to a safeshelter.
Ugh, you want me to go to ashelter, to a safe shelter?
Ugh, you want me to go to ashelter?
Yeah, if you're not safe inthis home, if those children
aren't safe in this home, yeah,yeah, I want you to go to a
shelter, go to a safe haven sothat they can give you some
resources, since you don't havethem now.
They can give you thoseresources.
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Don't turn your nose up andsnub a place that's trying to
help you when you've obviouslyput yourself in a situation that
you can't leave.
This significant other and I'mnot just talking about women.
Men do it too.
It is nationally known thatdomestic violence, where men are
the victims, is underreportedfor a variety of reasons.
The most obvious one is I'm notgoing to have somebody look at
(18:40):
me as a victim, but domesticviolence against men is
wholeheartedly underreported.
So it's not just women thatneed the help with these
shelters and these resources,it's men too.
I can't tell you how many caseswhere I've worked, where I go
and talk to the family, I talkto the husband, I talk to the
wife, the husband, whatever shesays, is what happened.
(19:02):
I talked to her and she is hedid this, he did this, he did
this.
And then I talked to somewitnesses, whether it's the
children in the home, adults inthe home, neighbors, whatever.
I talked to them and they go no, that's not the case at all.
He, whatever I talk to them andthey go no, that's not the case
at all.
He's the one that was beingvictimized, he's the one that
was this, that and the other.
So now I'm getting theirinformation and guess who?
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I take action against Her.
You know, we get it said all thetime, y'all just going to
believe the woman anyway.
I can't speak on other lawenforcement officers.
I can't speak on other agencies.
What I can say is I hope theywon't do that.
I hope that they don't do that.
I hope that they look at theevidence, they look at what's
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there, they determine who thepredominant aggressor is and
then they take the legal actionagainst that person.
Because, whether you know it ornot, every state in the US has
some domestic violence law onthe book, every single one of
them.
Now, there's differentvariations in all of them.
Some are 100% strict.
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You will determine a primaryaggressor, you will take action
against that person and takethem to jail.
Others just kind of say hey,we're going to give you a little
leeway, make the decision youneed to make.
But one thing that is certainis they remove the right of the
(20:26):
victim to press charges againstthe offender.
Do you know that In anydomestic violence situation that
falls under the domesticviolence code section for that
state, the state has said perlaw, the victim in the case is a
witness, but the determiningfactor on whether or not to
(20:46):
press charges lies solely in thelaw enforcement officer or the
district attorney or solicitor'soffice?
That's moving the case.
Now, obviously there'svariances in there for different
states and different states'law, but in general they remove
the right of the victim to presscharges against their offender.
Can you imagine why they didthat?
They did it because victimswere not wanting to press
(21:12):
charges, out of fear, out ofbelieving that if they did press
charges they were going to beput out on the street and
wouldn't have anything.
So the states finally gottogether and realized you know
what?
These people are gettingthemselves killed and we're not
doing anything about it, andit's our job to do that.
So they changed the law, sowe'll get there and people go
(21:36):
yeah, they hit me and they didthis and they did that, but I
don't want to do anything aboutit.
The state says you don't getthat option anymore.
But appreciate you telling mewhat happened.
I'm gonna go over here and getsome more information.
But on top of all that, when youbecome a repeat customer and
you have children involved, whatare you teaching those children
(22:00):
?
Moms, what are you teachingyour daughters?
If you have a significant otherthat puts hands on you, treats
you like trash, treats you likeproperty, and you got a little
girl that puts hands on you,treats you like trash, treats
you like property, and you got alittle girl that you're raising
, what do you think you'reteaching her?
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You want your little girl tothink that that's what it is to
be a woman, what that is to be asignificant other, for somebody
to be submissive, to be theirproperty, to be their punching
bag.
Dads, men, what are youteaching those boys?
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You teaching them that it'sokay to put hands on women and
let's flip the script and go thevictim route.
You teaching your boys thatit's okay for people, to put
their hands on them, to hurtthem.
I challenge you all to do someresearch online.
(23:07):
Find out how many deaths resultfrom domestic violence, and
then go one step further andlook at how many deaths were not
the first incident of domesticviolence, but multiple, and then
think about what those childrengo through in that home.
We've got to do better.
(23:28):
We've got to do better asparents, as individuals and as a
society.
We've got to do better for ourchildren than that.
Everybody goes around sayingthe old line of oh well, the
children are our future, but youdon't do anything about it.
You sit back, you say the words, you post your little memes and
(23:52):
everything on Facebook andsocial media and then you do
absolutely nothing about it.
Words without action meannothing.
We got to do better.
One of the worst cases and I'mtelling you this because I told
(24:12):
you I would, but one of theworst cases of domestic violence
that in my 18 years, I've everexperienced happened when I was
a rookie.
I'd been on the job a year,maybe two years, and get
dispatched to a medical call,because that's how it started
out.
Patient has a gunshot wound tothe leg and it's becoming
(24:37):
infected.
That's weird, that's suspicious.
So I jump in my brown crown, Iget on down the road and I get
there.
I walk in the home and there's awoman probably late 20s, early
(24:58):
30s, dressed in a black sheernegligee, if you will, some kind
of lingerie.
There were definitely more lacethan solid patches of fabric,
more lace than solid patches offabric.
Makeup was completely done,hair was perfectly done, and
(25:27):
she's in this lingerie and she'ssitting on her bed with a towel
over her leg.
Ma'am, this is who I am, thisis who I'm with, are you okay?
Well, I've got this hole in myleg and I think it's getting
infected.
She pulls the towel off.
Sure enough, she's got a holeright through her leg.
It is obviously gettinginfected.
Ems gets there.
They're dealing with it.
(25:47):
I see this.
I'm on the phone with theinvestigators, the people that
know more than me.
Hey, I don't know what I'mdoing.
Somebody got to come figurethis out.
The cavalry shows up and, forwhatever reason, this woman
developed a rapport with me.
She wasn't wanting to come openand talk to everybody else, but
(26:07):
she would talk to me.
So one of the investigatorscomes to me, says, hey, go in
there and see what you can findout.
We think that her husband didthis, but she's not coming off
of anything.
She's not telling us whathappened.
Okay, I'll try.
So I go into the room.
I'm standing next to this womanand she explains to me that
(26:30):
what happened.
Well, she took a drawer out ofher desk and it was a junk
drawer, and she decided to gothrough it.
She dumps it in her lap andthis loaded revolver that's in
there goes off and shoots her inthe leg.
Well, y'all know how firearmswork, especially revolvers work,
(26:54):
especially revolvers.
Like, if it's a semi-auto maybe, maybe Jennings high point
maybe, but a revolver Just gooff, fall out, hit you in the
leg and go off.
I didn't know much about gunsthen.
(27:18):
Probably don't know much moreabout guns now, but I know
that's not likely.
Especially when the bullet holewent straight through her thigh
, through the mattress and intothe floor.
Yeah, what gun you see falls,barrel down, fires directly down
(27:41):
, straight down, just like that.
That would suggest that theaction wasn't even hit, that the
impact from the barrel to thenice soft tissue of the muscle
caused that firearm to go off,that revolver to go off.
Mind you, this is 2006, 2007,maybe 2008.
(28:07):
Didn't buy it On top of thatcrime scene, had come to the
home and put guide rods in thewall.
For those of you that don't know, these guide rods are used to
help determine a trajectory pathof an object and in this
(28:29):
particular case, bullets Plural,because there wasn't just a
bullet that passed through herleg, there was a variety of
holes in the wall at the end ofthe foot of the bed and they
went in an arc, almost as ifsomebody had come up firing or
(28:50):
gone across and down firing,shooting bullets through this
trailer wall.
That's weird, that's suspicious.
But here she is, continue myconversation with her and she
(29:12):
winds up telling me that she'sdressed the way she is, and the
lingerie, the makeup, the hairand like the whole Victoria's
Secret thing, she ain't had manysecrets.
At this point I'm averting myeyes to not be inappropriate at
how much is exposed on thiswoman.
(29:32):
She tells me that she dresseslike this every single day
because her husband says thatthat's what a good wife does,
that when a man comes home fromwork, she looks her best.
On top of that, she tells methat she's going to get in
trouble because she hadn't gotdinner prepared for him.
(29:52):
Further in the conversation Ilearned that there are sexual
acts that happen between themthat hurt her, that she didn't
want to do, but he said if shewas a good wife she would do
them anyway.
Now, guys, I'm sure the machismois flowing through some people
(30:15):
right now, but I was raisedprimarily by a single mama.
She did a lot of things byherself and this is not taken
away from my dad or my stepdad,nothing like that.
But my mom was a tough womanand that's who raised me for the
(30:35):
most part.
To hear another woman makethose statements completely shut
me down, because I couldn'tunderstand how a human being
would think that it was okay tobe treated that way, that they
thought it was okay to betreated not only like property
(30:58):
but trash, be treated not onlylike property but trash.
This man treated his wife likeshe was just his little toy,
that she had no feelings, noemotions and it was okay to him.
And then when I try as rookie asI was when I try to have
(31:21):
further conversation about it,she says she lets me know that
there's physical violence thatgoes on with it as well, and
through conversation she tellsme that it's her fault, that she
deserved it, that had she beena better wife, he wouldn't have
(31:41):
had to put her hands on him.
Are you serious?
I'd always heard about caseslike this existing, the battered
wife syndrome and everythingelse.
I'd heard about that.
I'd heard about that.
(32:05):
But standing less than a footfrom me or sitting a foot from
me was a woman dressed the wayshe was, with a bullet hole in
her leg, telling me thateverything that was happening to
her she deserved because shewasn't a good enough wife.
And to kind of get to the endof the story, because I don't
want to keep dragging this outultimately she would not come
off of the fact that her husbandshot her when they interviewed
(32:30):
him.
He wouldn't come off the factthat he shot her.
Ultimately, we wound up withabsolutely nothing we could
prosecute.
We all knew better.
Every fiber of our being toldus better, but our hands wound
up getting tied and we could donothing about it.
So we did the only thing weknew we could do we get her to a
(32:53):
safe shelter.
Safe shelter winds up gettingher airline tickets to fly back
to her home state where herchildren yes, her children this
man had separated her and cuther off from her entire family
to include her children.
We get her plane tickets to goall the way back.
She calls her husband from thesafe shelter and says this is
(33:17):
where I am, come pick me up.
Husband drives to the safeshelter, picks her up, takes her
back home and she never gets onthe airplane.
And I'd love to be able to tellyou that I followed up on it and
so on and so forth, and this,that and the other happened, but
even to this day I have no ideawhat happened with that woman
(33:38):
or that situation.
I know we wound up havinganother incident at the home
that another shift handled, butoutside of that I couldn't tell
you.
I don't have a clue, but that'sthe worst one I've ever seen.
And then I think about the factthat these other homes where
(33:59):
I'm seeing property damage,people being injured I'm
thinking about these smallchildren that are living in the
home and the parents are doingnothing or the responsible
adults responsible are making upexcuses to constantly expose
these children to domesticviolence.
Don't get me wrong, I want todomestic violence, don't get me
(34:19):
wrong.
I want to help adults.
I want them to not have to gothrough that and, if I can,
spend some extra time trying tohelp them learn to communicate
and live better, and so on andso forth, then that's what I'm
going to do.
But I've been in the homes toomany times where no adult will
be responsible and do what theyneed to be doing.
(34:41):
They just keep repeating thecycle and exposing these
children to it, and then I haveto do the one thing that I don't
want to do, which is turn thecase over to a child care
service and have them startdoing something about it, which
usually ends up with thechildren being removed from the
home.
I don't want to do it because Ican't imagine my children ever
(35:06):
being taken away from me.
When they were young enough tobe in my home like that, I
couldn't imagine it, so I don'twant to do that to a parent.
But as a professional, as afather and, I'd like to think, a
decent human being, that's thebest option that I've got for
(35:27):
those kids if I want those kidsto have any chance in this life
whatsoever, free from domesticviolence and mental health
issues that come with it.
So we got to do better.
If you guys are in arelationship that is riddled
with domestic violence, figureit out.
(35:49):
Keep your issues your issues.
Don't bring those children intoit.
They don't deserve it.
They didn't ask for it.
They didn't ask to be here tobegin with.
They definitely don't ask youto make them victims as an adult
, do what needs to be right.
Do what needs to be done and doit right.
If you can't work together,then separate, figure it out and
(36:14):
separate.
You don't have to like eachother.
My mom and dad tolerated eachother.
My mom let me know howcold-hearted my dad was.
My dad don't ever recall himsaying an ill word toward my mom
, but I knew from his demeanorhe wasn't her biggest fan.
But they kept it away from mein terms of not making their
(36:35):
issues my issue.
When it came to schoolfunctions, my parents were there
.
When it came to baseball, myparents were there.
Football, my parents were there.
They didn't sit there and argue.
They didn't use me as leverageagainst the other parent.
And now that's what we see.
We got to do better.
I'm going to keep doing my part.
(36:58):
Those in the public safetyworld are going to continue to
do our part, but there's waymore of y'all than there is of
us and we can't do it alone.
So we need your help asindividuals and as a society.
(37:18):
We need your help to help getrid of this, to help do better.
We're not going to get rid ofit forever.
That's just not a feasiblething.
I live in a realistic worldwhere I know that all the
ill-gotten things that happen inthis world will never
completely go away, but it don'tmean we can't make it better,
(37:38):
and we're the only ones that can, because there's nobody else
going to do it for us.
So, with that being said, I'mgoing to go ahead and kick you
guys loose.
I appreciate you staying withme.
I appreciate that you listen tome rant, and again, with the
selfless, shamelessself-promotion.
(38:00):
Whatever you want to say, goover to the website
reachyourmindcom.
Give it a look and give me somelikes and follows.
Guys, there's a place on thewebsite as well where you can
send an email.
I would love to hear from youguys.
I would love to have y'allemail me, even if it's just for
me to talk about something youwant to hear about.
Or if you even just want to doa one-on-one interview and be on
(38:21):
the show, I'm game with thattoo.
I would love to have somebodyelse to talk to, because this is
difficult doing by yourself,okay, so reach out.
I'd love to have you guys.
I want to hear from you.
Get on the website, send someemails and let's get it done.
Until next time, be safe, guys.
Bye.
Team 1, stand by.
Copy Team 1 standing by Breach,breach, breach.
Hey guys, what's going on?
So welcome back to today's show, or the show.
Today we're going to cover atopic that, in my opinion, it's
(00:26):
an important one.
It's one that I've, because ofmy profession, I've had a great
deal of experience in as far ashandling.
I've seen what it can do tofolks, what it can do to
families, what it does, has done, to our society, and because of
that, I feel like it'simportant to at least talk about
(00:47):
it, and I'm probably not goingto talk about it in the manner
that you're expecting me to.
However, before I get to that,I do have to do some shameless
self-promoting.
I hate doing that just becauseI just don't like doing it.
However, I do need to do alittle something.
(01:08):
So, if you guys have not beento our website lately, we had a
small error a few days ago,completely tore up the site, and
it was a blessing in disguise,because I had the opportunity to
rebuild the webpage, get a lotof things more streamlined, they
(01:28):
flow a lot smoother now and oneof the things that I was
actually most excited about, Iwas actually able to add, along
with bringing some pages thatI'd already created but I lost
because I'm not a code writerand I don't know what I'm doing.
But I was able to get thosepages up and running as well.
Also centralized the podcastpage so you don't have to search
(01:52):
around for where the podcast isif you don't want to Now.
You can just go straight to thewebsite, click on the listen
tab and it brings you up toevery single one of the podcasts
that we've already uploaded, soit's a nice little convenient
place for you to listen to allof them.
But, that being said, the onething that I'm most excited
(02:14):
about is when I looked over thewebsite.
I was looking at it and there'spictures of me and talks of the
podcast and what the podcast isabout and everything like that,
but there was really noresource.
You know I would tell you toreach out to me, email me, hit
us up on the social platforms orwhatever, but even though I was
(02:36):
saying that I'm not a mentalhealth professional, I wasn't
given any guidance to wheresomeone who truly needed
professional help could go.
And what I was able to do andwhat I'm excited about was I was
able to create a resource page.
So I went and found a list ofresources 12 or 13 resources on
(02:59):
this resource page now and everysingle one of them has a
description of what it's for andit's got a hyperlink that'll
take you directly to the websitefor that particular
organization, whether it's thetext line, whether it's 988,
whether it's cop line, and it'snot just public safety, it's not
just military, it is foreveryone.
(03:22):
There are resources availablethere for everyday citizens.
There are resources there thatare specifically dedicated to
those that have dealt with ordeal with the public safety
profession or the military.
To get one place for all of that, because you can go on Google
(03:45):
and you can type in mentalhealth.
You can type in, you know,whatever issue you're thinking
of that pertains to mentalhealth, and it's going to give
you a whole list of differentplaces you could go, and every
one of them have done their SEO,their search engine
optimization.
They've all done that, and thatmakes it much more difficult
(04:07):
for someone who's trying to findhelp.
That makes it more difficultbecause now you're just adding
more fog to what's alreadycluttered in their mind, and
with my resource page, I'm ableto bring all of them into one
place, give a very smalldescription, make it very easy
for the person to reach out toit.
And then, to top that off, onevery single page of the website
(04:32):
there's a crisis support button.
So off on the left-hand side ofthe page there's a crisis
support button.
It is actually pulsating sothat it is very much visible no
matter where you scroll on thepage, it stays right there.
So if someone is looking at thewebsite and they're seeing what
we have to offer they'relooking at the podcast and
things like that and they kindof feel like maybe I need some
(04:57):
help, or they come there alreadyknowing that they need some
help, they can click that littlepulsating crisis support button
.
It takes you right over to thecrisis support page and then
gives you every one of thoseresources.
All 12 to 13 of those resourcesare right there.
They read through thedescription that are the very
brief description underneath it.
They click on the image and ittakes them right to that
(05:18):
resource.
There's no shifting around totry to figure out where you need
to go.
I put all of that there for you.
I made it easy for you to goand get the help that you need
to get and because of thatfeature alone to me, my website
brings that much more value towhat we're trying to do.
(05:42):
You know I've said before thatyou know what the mission for
this whole thing was was to helppeople through tough times and
everything like that.
And it is.
The mission is to break thestigma that surrounds mental
health, because, especiallythose of us in public safety, we
experience things at such ahigher rate and such a larger
(06:04):
volume than the average citizen,but everybody forgets we're
people too.
We're just human beings, justlike everyone else, and we have
to deal with those same things.
And if anyone thinks that thatstuff doesn't affect us, well
then you're wrong because itdoes.
Everything that we experiencevia someone else affects us, and
(06:29):
then we have to deal with it.
And then, on top of that, wewind up taking that home to our
families, and then how we handlethat at home with our families
can change that whole dynamic.
So we're all people, we're allindividuals and everybody at
times needs a little help withsomething you know, and chances
(06:50):
are you yourself, if you'resitting there saying no, not me,
I've never needed help, I'vegot this thing under control
chances are you've done it,you've needed it and you've done
it and you didn't even realizeit, because the more likely
scenario is that something wasweighing on your heart,
something was weighing on yourmind and you turned to somebody
(07:10):
that you trust and you vented tothem.
Whether you want to admit it ornot, that is also mental health
, because you're having to getthat it.
So, again, you may deny it.
It's understood, especiallythose of us in this profession.
(07:32):
We deny it, we deny that weneed it.
Nope, we're big, strong people.
We don't need it.
We're A-type personalities.
We're good to go, becausethat's what people want to see.
Your teammates don't want tosee you break down.
The public doesn't want to seeyou break down.
So you got to be strong.
So we deny it.
And with that denial can come awhole slew of other issues, and
(07:55):
that's what we're trying tobreak.
That's what the purpose ofBreach your Mind is is to break
that stigma.
And now, because of how we'vedone the website, we're able to,
I guess, push that stigma alittle bit further away.
At least that's my hope.
And, like I said, I'm veryexcited about that crisis
(08:17):
support page and the website ingeneral.
I'm much happier with the wayit looks, the way it flows.
I'm sure, as time goes on,we're going to get more stuff
going on to make it even moreadvertising or not advertising,
but appetizing and moreinteractive.
So we're you know, even thoughwe're a few years into this,
(08:38):
we're really kind of justgetting started.
So, again with the shamelessself-promotion if you haven't
done so, go over tobreachyourmindcom, click around
on the website, click up andsubscribe for the emails or
newsletters.
Trying to get on the newsletterthing, I've never done that
before, so bear with me, butwe're trying to get that going.
(09:01):
So, with that being said, let'sget into today's topic.
Okay, so again, like I saidearlier before I went off on my
little rant about the website,today's topic is one that likely
everybody's had some kind ofexperience with Obviously being
(09:22):
in public safety for 18 years.
I've done it a lot.
It has been probably the breadand butter of everything that
I've done.
When you hear about publicsafety workers having to be
social workers and things likethat, this is why it's things
like domestic violence, it'sthings like domestic disputes
(09:44):
that make us wind up having tobe social workers, because what
we find out, oddly enough, isit's not just alcohol, it's not
just drugs, it's not justinfidelity.
Often enough, it's justcommunication.
There's a breakdown ofcommunication in the home,
whether it's, you know, betweenthe spouse or the spouses,
(10:07):
whether it's between theboyfriend and girlfriend, just
significant others, whatever,even child and parent.
There's a breakdown ofcommunication and because we
don't learn how to communicate,the whole thing falls apart.
And that's where our domesticviolence starts coming from,
obviously, things like alcoholsand alcohol, drug infidelity,
(10:29):
financialist issues.
There's a whole slew of issuesthat contribute to it.
So I'm not trying to say thatcommunication is the only thing.
There's a whole slew of thingsthat contribute to domestic
violence in our country, butcommunication is one of the ones
that I've seen.
The biggest part of thatsubstance abuse and infidelity.
(10:54):
Now, that being said and I don'twant this to come off like I am
trivializing domestic violencebetween adults because I'm not
um, domestic violence betweenadults because I'm not um, and
I'll give you an example of oneof the worst cases of domestic
violence that that I'veexperienced in my career, um,
(11:15):
but while I do, while I doacknowledge and want to address
and we need to work on handlingdomestic violence and want to
address, and we need to work onhandling domestic violence
between adults, the moreimportant topic that I think
there is to bring up in regardsto this is children, and I don't
(11:36):
necessarily mean children beinginvolved in the domestic
violence in the sense of it'sbetween parent and child or it's
between siblings.
I'm talking about child victims, children that are exposed to
domestic violence and have nochoice but to be exposed to it.
(11:57):
Okay, that's a problem in oursociety.
Just a simple Google search,looking up some statistics,
you'll find that between 3 and10 million children a year in
our country experience domesticviolence.
(12:17):
10 to 20 percent of thechildren in our country
experience domestic violence.
Of the children in our countryexperience domestic violence.
I don't know about y'all.
I grew up in a much differenttime, but I don't know how a
(12:39):
child processes stuff like that.
You know, I've said before thatI come from a split home.
I don't ever remember a timewhen my mom and my dad were
married.
They were divorced for myentire life, as far as I know,
and honestly I never even askedwhen they got divorced after I
was born.
So I never grew up in a singlefamily home or a joint family
home like that.
(12:59):
I went to my dad every otherweekend and two weeks out of the
summer and stayed with my momthe rest of the time and that
was my life.
But even at that, my parentstook the effort to, even though
they couldn't stand each otherand I learned later on how much
they couldn't stand each otherEven though they didn't like
each other, they made sure thatI knew that they loved me and
(13:22):
they made sure to keep theirissues between them.
So, even though I grew up in asplit home, I don't understand
what these other children gothrough and I can't imagine what
it's like to go through as anadult, going to these scenes and
working these domestics.
I know, as an adult I don'twant to hear people screaming
(13:44):
and hollering at one another allthe time, but as a child, as a
helpless child who can't doanything about it, how do they
manage that?
How do you bring a child up ina home that is just riddled with
domestic violence and expectthat child to be okay?
(14:07):
And please don't take this asme pointing fingers or anything
like that, because I've been onthe scenes, I've been in the
homes and I've had it said to me.
You don't understand.
You're right, I don't.
What I do understand is the factthat I've been married for 24
years.
I think it's 24.
Where is it?
(14:28):
Yeah, I've been married for 24years.
I know life's not easy.
I've been married to the samewoman for 24 years and have
raised our children.
We have raised our children andhave grandchildren.
So while I don't know what it'slike, I do know a little
something about something and Iknow how tough life can be, not
(14:52):
just from my own experience, butfrom the job as well.
Again, I'm not trying to pointfingers, I'm not trying to
belittle or make anybody feelbad.
That's not the point of this.
But you have to understand,from a public safety standpoint,
how frustrating it gets attimes when you're at these homes
(15:17):
that are repeated domesticviolence incidents and when you
try to tell people hey, you know, you guys probably should start
thinking about maybe doing somecouples therapy, maybe
separation Look, it's obviouslyyour relationship's not working
out.
Maybe y'all need to go yourseparate ways Until you get to
the point of all right, look, Iunderstand everything you're
(15:38):
saying, but at some point one ofyou has to start taking these
children into consideration.
You have to start realizingthat this is going to affect
those children and take thatinto consideration, because if
you don't, you're causing thosechildren to be victims.
And I get told oh well, you know, I just I stay with them
(16:02):
because of because of.
I stay with them.
I stay with this person becauseof the kids.
Because of the kids.
What do you mean?
You stay with them because ofthe kids.
You're keeping them in atumultuous situation for the
(16:25):
sole purpose that it's for them.
You're keeping them in asituation that is causing them
mental health issues and mentalhealth struggles for them.
I'm not pointing fingers, butI'm going to need that explained
to me a little bit.
(16:45):
I'm going to need somebody toexplain to me how staying in a
relationship that is unhealthyas the day is long, is for those
children, because the way itcomes off I'm not saying this is
(17:05):
it, but the way it comes off isyou're staying in that
relationship for yourself andusing the children as a reason
to hold on.
Not saying that's the case,just saying that that's how it
comes off To those of us on theoutside that don't know that's
(17:27):
how it comes off.
And then I hear well, you don'tunderstand how hard it is, I've
got no place to go.
You're right, I don't knowthose things, but I always have
a list of resources that I cangive you.
Talk to a victim witnessprogram.
There are safe shelters, andthat's the one that really
(17:51):
upsets me as I tell people okay,well, if you don't feel safe
here, you can go to a safeshelter.
Ugh, you want me to go to ashelter, to a safe shelter?
Ugh, you want me to go to ashelter?
Yeah, if you're not safe inthis home, if those children
aren't safe in this home, yeah,yeah, I want you to go to a
shelter, go to a safe haven sothat they can give you some
resources, since you don't havethem now.
They can give you thoseresources.
(18:18):
Don't turn your nose up andsnub a place that's trying to
help you when you've obviouslyput yourself in a situation that
you can't leave.
This significant other and I'mnot just talking about women.
Men do it too.
It is nationally known thatdomestic violence, where men are
the victims, is underreportedfor a variety of reasons.
The most obvious one is I'm notgoing to have somebody look at
(18:40):
me as a victim, but domesticviolence against men is
wholeheartedly underreported.
So it's not just women thatneed the help with these
shelters and these resources,it's men too.
I can't tell you how many caseswhere I've worked, where I go
and talk to the family, I talkto the husband, I talk to the
wife, the husband, whatever shesays, is what happened.
(19:02):
I talked to her and she is hedid this, he did this, he did
this.
And then I talked to somewitnesses, whether it's the
children in the home, adults inthe home, neighbors, whatever.
I talked to them and they go no, that's not the case at all.
He, whatever I talk to them andthey go no, that's not the case
at all.
He's the one that was beingvictimized, he's the one that
was this, that and the other.
So now I'm getting theirinformation and guess who?
(19:24):
I take action against Her.
You know, we get it said all thetime, y'all just going to
believe the woman anyway.
I can't speak on other lawenforcement officers.
I can't speak on other agencies.
What I can say is I hope theywon't do that.
I hope that they don't do that.
I hope that they look at theevidence, they look at what's
(19:45):
there, they determine who thepredominant aggressor is and
then they take the legal actionagainst that person.
Because, whether you know it ornot, every state in the US has
some domestic violence law onthe book, every single one of
them.
Now, there's differentvariations in all of them.
Some are 100% strict.
(20:05):
You will determine a primaryaggressor, you will take action
against that person and takethem to jail.
Others just kind of say hey,we're going to give you a little
leeway, make the decision youneed to make.
But one thing that is certainis they remove the right of the
(20:26):
victim to press charges againstthe offender.
Do you know that In anydomestic violence situation that
falls under the domesticviolence code section for that
state, the state has said perlaw, the victim in the case is a
witness, but the determiningfactor on whether or not to
(20:46):
press charges lies solely in thelaw enforcement officer or the
district attorney or solicitor'soffice?
That's moving the case.
Now, obviously there'svariances in there for different
states and different states'law, but in general they remove
the right of the victim to presscharges against their offender.
Can you imagine why they didthat?
They did it because victimswere not wanting to press
(21:12):
charges, out of fear, out ofbelieving that if they did press
charges they were going to beput out on the street and
wouldn't have anything.
So the states finally gottogether and realized you know
what?
These people are gettingthemselves killed and we're not
doing anything about it, andit's our job to do that.
So they changed the law, sowe'll get there and people go
(21:36):
yeah, they hit me and they didthis and they did that, but I
don't want to do anything aboutit.
The state says you don't getthat option anymore.
But appreciate you telling mewhat happened.
I'm gonna go over here and getsome more information.
But on top of all that, when youbecome a repeat customer and
you have children involved, whatare you teaching those children
(22:00):
?
Moms, what are you teachingyour daughters?
If you have a significant otherthat puts hands on you, treats
you like trash, treats you likeproperty, and you got a little
girl that puts hands on you,treats you like trash, treats
you like property, and you got alittle girl that you're raising
, what do you think you'reteaching her?
(22:21):
You want your little girl tothink that that's what it is to
be a woman, what that is to be asignificant other, for somebody
to be submissive, to be theirproperty, to be their punching
bag.
Dads, men, what are youteaching those boys?
(22:44):
You teaching them that it'sokay to put hands on women and
let's flip the script and go thevictim route.
You teaching your boys thatit's okay for people, to put
their hands on them, to hurtthem.
I challenge you all to do someresearch online.
(23:07):
Find out how many deaths resultfrom domestic violence, and
then go one step further andlook at how many deaths were not
the first incident of domesticviolence, but multiple, and then
think about what those childrengo through in that home.
We've got to do better.
(23:28):
We've got to do better asparents, as individuals and as a
society.
We've got to do better for ourchildren than that.
Everybody goes around sayingthe old line of oh well, the
children are our future, but youdon't do anything about it.
You sit back, you say the words, you post your little memes and
(23:52):
everything on Facebook andsocial media and then you do
absolutely nothing about it.
Words without action meannothing.
We got to do better.
One of the worst cases and I'mtelling you this because I told
(24:12):
you I would, but one of theworst cases of domestic violence
that in my 18 years, I've everexperienced happened when I was
a rookie.
I'd been on the job a year,maybe two years, and get
dispatched to a medical call,because that's how it started
out.
Patient has a gunshot wound tothe leg and it's becoming
(24:37):
infected.
That's weird, that's suspicious.
So I jump in my brown crown, Iget on down the road and I get
there.
I walk in the home and there's awoman probably late 20s, early
(24:58):
30s, dressed in a black sheernegligee, if you will, some kind
of lingerie.
There were definitely more lacethan solid patches of fabric,
more lace than solid patches offabric.
Makeup was completely done,hair was perfectly done, and
(25:27):
she's in this lingerie and she'ssitting on her bed with a towel
over her leg.
Ma'am, this is who I am, thisis who I'm with, are you okay?
Well, I've got this hole in myleg and I think it's getting
infected.
She pulls the towel off.
Sure enough, she's got a holeright through her leg.
It is obviously gettinginfected.
Ems gets there.
They're dealing with it.
(25:47):
I see this.
I'm on the phone with theinvestigators, the people that
know more than me.
Hey, I don't know what I'mdoing.
Somebody got to come figurethis out.
The cavalry shows up and, forwhatever reason, this woman
developed a rapport with me.
She wasn't wanting to come openand talk to everybody else, but
(26:07):
she would talk to me.
So one of the investigatorscomes to me, says, hey, go in
there and see what you can findout.
We think that her husband didthis, but she's not coming off
of anything.
She's not telling us whathappened.
Okay, I'll try.
So I go into the room.
I'm standing next to this womanand she explains to me that
(26:30):
what happened.
Well, she took a drawer out ofher desk and it was a junk
drawer, and she decided to gothrough it.
She dumps it in her lap andthis loaded revolver that's in
there goes off and shoots her inthe leg.
Well, y'all know how firearmswork, especially revolvers work,
(26:54):
especially revolvers.
Like, if it's a semi-auto maybe, maybe Jennings high point
maybe, but a revolver Just gooff, fall out, hit you in the
leg and go off.
I didn't know much about gunsthen.
(27:18):
Probably don't know much moreabout guns now, but I know
that's not likely.
Especially when the bullet holewent straight through her thigh
, through the mattress and intothe floor.
Yeah, what gun you see falls,barrel down, fires directly down
(27:41):
, straight down, just like that.
That would suggest that theaction wasn't even hit, that the
impact from the barrel to thenice soft tissue of the muscle
caused that firearm to go off,that revolver to go off.
Mind you, this is 2006, 2007,maybe 2008.
(28:07):
Didn't buy it On top of thatcrime scene, had come to the
home and put guide rods in thewall.
For those of you that don't know, these guide rods are used to
help determine a trajectory pathof an object and in this
(28:29):
particular case, bullets Plural,because there wasn't just a
bullet that passed through herleg, there was a variety of
holes in the wall at the end ofthe foot of the bed and they
went in an arc, almost as ifsomebody had come up firing or
(28:50):
gone across and down firing,shooting bullets through this
trailer wall.
That's weird, that's suspicious.
But here she is, continue myconversation with her and she
(29:12):
winds up telling me that she'sdressed the way she is, and the
lingerie, the makeup, the hairand like the whole Victoria's
Secret thing, she ain't had manysecrets.
At this point I'm averting myeyes to not be inappropriate at
how much is exposed on thiswoman.
(29:32):
She tells me that she dresseslike this every single day
because her husband says thatthat's what a good wife does,
that when a man comes home fromwork, she looks her best.
On top of that, she tells methat she's going to get in
trouble because she hadn't gotdinner prepared for him.
(29:52):
Further in the conversation Ilearned that there are sexual
acts that happen between themthat hurt her, that she didn't
want to do, but he said if shewas a good wife she would do
them anyway.
Now, guys, I'm sure the machismois flowing through some people
(30:15):
right now, but I was raisedprimarily by a single mama.
She did a lot of things byherself and this is not taken
away from my dad or my stepdad,nothing like that.
But my mom was a tough womanand that's who raised me for the
(30:35):
most part.
To hear another woman makethose statements completely shut
me down, because I couldn'tunderstand how a human being
would think that it was okay tobe treated that way, that they
thought it was okay to betreated not only like property
(30:58):
but trash, be treated not onlylike property but trash.
This man treated his wife likeshe was just his little toy,
that she had no feelings, noemotions and it was okay to him.
And then when I try as rookie asI was when I try to have
(31:21):
further conversation about it,she says she lets me know that
there's physical violence thatgoes on with it as well, and
through conversation she tellsme that it's her fault, that she
deserved it, that had she beena better wife, he wouldn't have
(31:41):
had to put her hands on him.
Are you serious?
I'd always heard about caseslike this existing, the battered
wife syndrome and everythingelse.
I'd heard about that.
I'd heard about that.
(32:05):
But standing less than a footfrom me or sitting a foot from
me was a woman dressed the wayshe was, with a bullet hole in
her leg, telling me thateverything that was happening to
her she deserved because shewasn't a good enough wife.
And to kind of get to the endof the story, because I don't
want to keep dragging this outultimately she would not come
off of the fact that her husbandshot her when they interviewed
(32:30):
him.
He wouldn't come off the factthat he shot her.
Ultimately, we wound up withabsolutely nothing we could
prosecute.
We all knew better.
Every fiber of our being toldus better, but our hands wound
up getting tied and we could donothing about it.
So we did the only thing weknew we could do we get her to a
(32:53):
safe shelter.
Safe shelter winds up gettingher airline tickets to fly back
to her home state where herchildren yes, her children this
man had separated her and cuther off from her entire family
to include her children.
We get her plane tickets to goall the way back.
She calls her husband from thesafe shelter and says this is
(33:17):
where I am, come pick me up.
Husband drives to the safeshelter, picks her up, takes her
back home and she never gets onthe airplane.
And I'd love to be able to tellyou that I followed up on it and
so on and so forth, and this,that and the other happened, but
even to this day I have no ideawhat happened with that woman
(33:38):
or that situation.
I know we wound up havinganother incident at the home
that another shift handled, butoutside of that I couldn't tell
you.
I don't have a clue, but that'sthe worst one I've ever seen.
And then I think about the factthat these other homes where
(33:59):
I'm seeing property damage,people being injured I'm
thinking about these smallchildren that are living in the
home and the parents are doingnothing or the responsible
adults responsible are making upexcuses to constantly expose
these children to domesticviolence.
Don't get me wrong, I want todomestic violence, don't get me
(34:19):
wrong.
I want to help adults.
I want them to not have to gothrough that and, if I can,
spend some extra time trying tohelp them learn to communicate
and live better, and so on andso forth, then that's what I'm
going to do.
But I've been in the homes toomany times where no adult will
be responsible and do what theyneed to be doing.
(34:41):
They just keep repeating thecycle and exposing these
children to it, and then I haveto do the one thing that I don't
want to do, which is turn thecase over to a child care
service and have them startdoing something about it, which
usually ends up with thechildren being removed from the
home.
I don't want to do it because Ican't imagine my children ever
(35:06):
being taken away from me.
When they were young enough tobe in my home like that, I
couldn't imagine it, so I don'twant to do that to a parent.
But as a professional, as afather and, I'd like to think, a
decent human being, that's thebest option that I've got for
(35:27):
those kids if I want those kidsto have any chance in this life
whatsoever, free from domesticviolence and mental health
issues that come with it.
So we got to do better.
If you guys are in arelationship that is riddled
with domestic violence, figureit out.
(35:49):
Keep your issues your issues.
Don't bring those children intoit.
They don't deserve it.
They didn't ask for it.
They didn't ask to be here tobegin with.
They definitely don't ask youto make them victims as an adult
, do what needs to be right.
Do what needs to be done and doit right.
If you can't work together,then separate, figure it out and
(36:14):
separate.
You don't have to like eachother.
My mom and dad tolerated eachother.
My mom let me know howcold-hearted my dad was.
My dad don't ever recall himsaying an ill word toward my mom
, but I knew from his demeanorhe wasn't her biggest fan.
But they kept it away from mein terms of not making their
(36:35):
issues my issue.
When it came to schoolfunctions, my parents were there
.
When it came to baseball, myparents were there.
Football, my parents were there.
They didn't sit there and argue.
They didn't use me as leverageagainst the other parent.
And now that's what we see.
We got to do better.
I'm going to keep doing my part.
(36:58):
Those in the public safetyworld are going to continue to
do our part, but there's waymore of y'all than there is of
us and we can't do it alone.
So we need your help asindividuals and as a society.
(37:18):
We need your help to help getrid of this, to help do better.
We're not going to get rid ofit forever.
That's just not a feasiblething.
I live in a realistic worldwhere I know that all the
ill-gotten things that happen inthis world will never
completely go away, but it don'tmean we can't make it better,
(37:38):
and we're the only ones that can, because there's nobody else
going to do it for us.
So, with that being said, I'mgoing to go ahead and kick you
guys loose.
I appreciate you staying withme.
I appreciate that you listen tome rant, and again, with the
selfless, shamelessself-promotion.
(38:00):
Whatever you want to say, goover to the website
reachyourmindcom.
Give it a look and give me somelikes and follows.
Guys, there's a place on thewebsite as well where you can
send an email.
I would love to hear from youguys.
I would love to have y'allemail me, even if it's just for
me to talk about something youwant to hear about.
Or if you even just want to doa one-on-one interview and be on
(38:21):
the show, I'm game with thattoo.
I would love to have somebodyelse to talk to, because this is
difficult doing by yourself,okay, so reach out.
I'd love to have you guys.
I want to hear from you.
Get on the website, send someemails and let's get it done.
Until next time, be safe, guys.
Bye.
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