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We have new renters next door that moved in last June.
Pretty quiet, said hi a few times and exchange a smile and that's it.
Some kids of different ages, seems like maybe a grandma living there. I rarely see them, I am not even sure who lives there. I hear men talking, who knows if they live there I honestly almost never see anyone.
One younger boy in a wheelchair. I don't know how many kids because I don't know them from their friends but I would guess 4 kids ranging in age from maybe elementary but at least 2 teen looking girls.
Today my girls and Mike came home from a school fundraiser at Chik Fil A (yuk) about 7:30 PM
Mike went to go throw some garbage out. The can is between our house and their house, and a girl about 15 or so came up and told he and my girls that her mother was beating her sister with a pole, that she was holding her down and not letting her up.
Mike asked how old her sister was, and she said 14.
He asked her if she wanted him to call anyone, or if there was someone she wanted him to call, and she said, "I don't know".
She asked Mike if he could hear her sister screaming, and he listened but could not. Neither could my kids.
About that time their front door opened and they heard a little boy call outside, "mom wants you in the house, mom wants a new stick".
I assume the girl left and my husband came in.
My dorky husband who wasn't sure if he should get involved, or even if it was wrong, since he was beat as a child. Like this is normal, what families "do".
Excuse my French, but fuck that.
The kids came in and were telling me about the fund raiser, about Lisa getting a scratch, blah blah. It took a good 5 minutes for ANYONE to tell me about what happened next door.
I made Amber hang up the phone with her friend immediately and called 9-1-1.
Beating her kid with a pole? That's not something I stand by and keep my nose in my own business for.
I then immediately walked outside because I was going to go knock on the door to interrupt them. Then I wasn't sure what I would find, so I just listened.
I could hear someone inside coughing really hard like either they had been choking, had been crying really hard and started to cough, or maybe swallowed wrong. I mean, it was just a really hard coughing over and over is all I could tell but not like a cold.
I was just listening because if I heard any crying or screaming or whatever I was going to just knock on the door just so they would stop hurting this kid. I didn't even know what I would say. I just wanted it to stop if it was still happening.
Soon the police came, two cars, I told them what I knew and they went over. I went inside and made Lisa come in and said it was not our business to be out there.
Mike was being nosy peeking out the window (he needs friends, I know) and before too long a fire-rescue truck came with paramedics (Mike reported this and that they were getting out a stretcher).
I was sooooooooooooo pissed. If they found injuries needing paramedics, I was just pissed and I stormed out front and slammed the door just waiting to see what happened. I stood by my car and could feel the wrinkles in my forehead from me scowling, just realizing that I felt so mad inside.
They brought the stretcher in, but a couple minutes later they came with it but the 14 year old girl was walking on her own.
She was walking slow, holding her arm bent, kind of, and one of the paramedics had his arm on her shoulder and was talking to her in the driveway.
She ended up climbing into the back of the ambulance/fire rescue truck. One of the officers came out (he was parked in front of my house) and got on the radio and radioed in that the ambulance was taking the girl to Bethesda hospital.
I went in, knowing she would be taken care of.
A few times throughout the night the police have come by to ask us questions. Apparently, next door they were trying to tell the officers the mother had NOT beaten the child. That the child had gotten into some sort of fight with someone else at an earlier time. But, the officer told us, that the injuries the girl had sustained did NOT coincide with her that story, but more went with the mother and pole story.
So they were lying.
Grrrrrr.
Another officer came back to ask the kids and my husband what the girl who talked to them was wearing because there were so many people over there they weren't sure exactly who said what or who was who. They were just trying to get it all straight.
Later, someone came over to take a recorded statement.
Oh, and there ended up being like 4 cop cars, which I believe are still there and it's hours later.
Mike has been eavesdropping as some people are being questioned outside.
I hope they arrest her.
It just pisses me off.
I think they are Haitian and I know they do things differently in the islands, but I wanted to go over there and say, "This is America, bitch, and you can't get away with that here."
I mean, come on! The girl was injured enough to have to go to the hospital? That's not a spanking. That's complete BS.
Oh, it makes me so mad.
But one of the first thoughts put directly in my mind was that I am still here in this house and I was able to help her. That I was here right now for that reason. Not that it is me, but like I am being used - my family was - to help this girl.
I just want to be a neighborhood crusader or something!!! ;-)
So after, my daughter comes to show me (Lisa, my 8 year old) a test she did today that she got 100% on.
I was so proud of her! I had to give her 3 or 4 high fives in a row for that one! And then I think about these kids next door and what their life must be like. And how lucky my kids are that they have us for parents. I said to Lisa how she is lucky she doesn't have crazy parents. Well, that I was crazy, but not "beat you with a pole" crazy!!
Some people want to rescue kittens. Me, whenever I see a child cry I just about crumble inside. I just want to go over and comfort them. I am serious, I think I need to do something with my life for kids. I was thinking about it the other day. I just don't know what. Kids are so good, so fresh and pure and unspoiled until their evil parents get hold of them. But when they are young, they still have a shot, ya know?
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Finally at about 11, I went out front to see if the one police officers that had been in his car (writing reports and all) wanted some bottled water or a cold soda (they'd been out there a very long time). I noticed the other cop (it had narrowed to two sheriff's) was in his car so I said, "you've been out here a long time... Do you want..." and about that time noticed that the mother was in the back seat of his police car!!
YAY!!
And Mike overheard that DCF (Dept. of Children and Families) was going to the hospital to question the girl before coming to the home, and that DCF dude didn't show up until about midnight with another cop.
I think the grandmother lives there (I said hi to an older lady yesterday getting the mail, I have seen her more than anyone else) so hopefully the kids got to stay in her custody while the mother was taken. I am guessing that's the case or there would have been cops there the whole time.
Believe me, I know someone who works doing this -- temporarily housing kids until they can be brought to a "safe house" and the "safe house" is anything but safe. So I hate to see any child have to go there.
OK, off to take the kids to school. |
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Thank god for people like you and your family....... if you guys weren't there,there's no telling what would've happened to that girl.Hopefully she'll be OK and the mom will get some help,no child needs to be abused like that. |
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Oh, also while my husband was spying (he's so funny, he went in the kids room - which is near where the cops were parked - and opened the window and sat in the dark to listen.) he saw the officers bring out in two paper bags put opening to opening around an item, about a 3 foot long that he said looked like it could be "the pipe" in question. I guess they needed it for evidence.
Stupid woman. Beating her child. What the hell is wrong with people??
Now I can't wait to see them out front of our houses getting the mail at the same time (total sarcasm, of course - I don't look forward to it).
What do you say, "Hi, how are you? How was jail? Sorry I called the police on you, psycho child abuser!"
I mean, what do you say after something like this??
...Maybe Hallmark makes a special card.... |
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| | | From: Annie | Sent: 9/18/2008 1:50 PM |
Can I just you are hilarious... maybe Hallmark makes a special card..... I don't care who youare that's funnt right there....... I'm so glad you were able to help her. I just shudder to think how badly she would've been hurt if you hadn't called 911. Another thing I'm wondering is..... how does your "I got beat as a child that's normal" husband feel about it now? |
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He's glad I called, of course. He just struggled with it, was still deciding in his mind if he should get involved, etc. because although he, personally, would never strike a child, this is how he has seen families raised. No one ever got involved there, so, in a vulgar display of poor judgment, he did nothing.
I think that's messed up that when you come from abuse, you might still not know if it's "OK" to get involved. Yet even people who don't come from abuse, I suppose, hesitate for various reasons including fear of retaliation.
People just don't want to get involved. I was being attacked by an ex boyfriend and drew a crowd with witnesses who saw him punch me and force me out of my own car and drive away, leaving me barefoot with no purse to walk for help and to find a pay phone to call 9-1-1.
I was really, REALLY shocked that, although I had called out to the people who had stopped to stare to please call the police, upon calling myself, there had been ZERO calls from any of those onlookers. Not one had reported the incident.
But hitting kids? Come on, they are kids. How tough do you have to be to beat up a child?
Obviously my neighbor crossed the line of standard corporal punishment to have DCF involved and to be arrested!
Spanking a child is one thing (I still don't get on board with that, not that I have never done it in my life, though), but to use a WEAPON?
Argh.
I love it (sarcasm) when people have tried to convince me that hitting your child is tough love and makes them a better person. That this is "discipline".
Discipline means "to teach" and I find it odd that someone would really believe the way to teach is to hit.
Like all mammals, a humans primary way of learning is by watching. By example. I don't believe in hitting a child, therefore risking teaching them that hitting is the way to solve conflict.
I've seen a parent hit their child for hitting another child!
HEELLOO! Open your eyes, lady!
"We don't HIT!" she said and smacked the hand of the child who hit on the playground.
Duh.
Discipline, in my eyes, only resorts to violence when you are out of options, at your wits end, when you are unable to effectively discipline without violence. It is not (in my eyes) a solution, but more a way to unleash your own frustrations and rage. The wrong way, I want to clarify.
It boggles my mind that there are people can abuse their children and truly think it's just OK. Yet this was obviously not the case next door or they would not have created lies to try to cover up what happened.
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Update...
I was just outside talking to my neighbor when the girl who was abused walked by us after school. Her arm was in a sling.
Grrrrr. |
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There's a difference between getting beat and getting abused.......... do i paddle my children???When they need it. Do i abuse my children???No,yes they get smacked but i don't lose it on them and i have never hurt them...... I'm sure if you ask Mike he'd say the same thing....... But i can't believe she's in a sling...scarey to think what could've happened if you didn't call |
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