I heard an interesting story today. I was discussing domestic violence with my Lieutenant. He told me in the old days before Texas changed the family violence laws that the police would have to see the assault or the victim (usually the woman) would have to press charges. Of course often times the victims do not want to press charges usually because she loves him, he's the bread winner, she's afraid of what he'll do when he comes home. He told me of one couple in rural Texas where he used to work. The man would go out to a country bar, get drunk, come home and beat up his wife. She would set off the house alarm and when help arrived she never wanted to press charges. The law being what it was the police couldn't help her and were getting sick of going out there if she didn't want to help herself. So, they came up with a plan, the next time she pulled the alarm and didn't want to file charges, they were going to arrest her for false alarm. The next day, she pulls the alarm. The police go out there and the drunk husband is standing in the doorway. My Lt. walks up to the husband telling him to get out of the way. The husband talks smack and gets his foot stepped on. He shoves my Lt. and that's all he needed. The drunk husband goes down and goes to jail. I imagine in those days if you wanted to help a woman you'd have to subtly provoke the man into doing something stupid with the police and take him down.
I'm glad my Lt. has changed his mind about retiring. We didn't want to see him go.
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