#nrdv

Inktober Day Seven: BE GOOD. BE BETTER. http://www.ywcaweekwithoutviolence.org/ http://www.dvrc-or.org/ http://www.nrcdv.org/

You don't usually see domestic violence. You hear it.

While having a conversation about sexual assault, with an Army Staff Sergeant who works with sexual assault victims: she heard the scream of someone being assaulted. She banged on the window of the car: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING. He kicked the woman out of the car and sped away. Call 911 my friend said, and went to the victim who made it, like twenty feet before curling into a ball on the sidewalk.  

I followed orders. I'm sorry I'm crying, I said to the 911 operator. I've never done this before. I gave the cross streets. The car didn't have license plates.

Two Tacoma Police Department cars showed up in ten minutes. My friend held this weeping woman. Her family is in Puerto Rico, she's staying at the Salvation Army. She's afraid of the cops and is afraid of EVERYTHING. You are my angel, she says to my friend. Her mother is dead; she wants her mother.

The cops stay around for an hour while my friend controls this shit. Tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and being an advocate for domestic/sexual assault victims? She knows   this. She tells me what to ask the cops to do.

While staying with this woman and trying to calm her down, my friend takes a hair-clip out of the woman's hair and runs her fingers through her hair, getting rid of tangles and pine needles.   My friend braids the woman's hair, the woman has an elastic hair-band in her bag that she hands to my friend. "You should not be treated this way" my friend tells the woman.

After an hour, the cops drove the woman to the Salvation Army.  I apologized to my friend for crying like a little bitch the entire time.