My Personal Thanks to These Clearwater Officers

This is the second video in a row that is a balm for the weariest part of my soul.  I just reported on a case from Champaign, Illinois where a cop promptly arrested the school board president for jerking off at the splash pad.  I grew up in an era where that would have been a problem for whoever invaded his privacy, so rudely yelling, "I know who you are!" before he was able to finish.

Today's video is the rare bodycam where the arrestee doesn't scream, "I need your badge number!" over and over.  So I don't have identifying information other than the Axon ID visible in the video.  I can't send thank-you notes to the offficers.  But I would love to.

My friend Wendy Huggy was kidnapped in Clearwater, Florida in 1982.  At the time she was 16, pregnant, and on the run from her abusive "husband" in Chicago, Eddie Freeman.  Wendy married him at 15 because her mother abandoned her, and she had nowhere to live.  So when Wendy was kidnapped, the police officially considered her a married woman, and thus an adult.  Therefore when she disappeared at 16 she was seen as someone who simply wandered off on her own.  They didn't look for her at all, and closed her case after two weeks, even though it was very obvious that she had nowhere to go and no means of support.

So the above video makes me glad in ways I can't really describe.  Because it shows me that a new day has arrived.  The intoxicated young woman didn't have to disappear and get blown off for a few decades for anyone to give a shit about her.  Clearwater PD proactively engaged to safeguard her life when she wasn't able to recognize the danger she was in or protect herself -- just as Wendy couldn't.  Their one overburdened cold-case person, Detective Celeste at the moment, won't have to add her to the list.  Because these three officers saw this bullshit and intervened.

And the woman in this video doesn't expect that.  She's drunk and confused.  She's afraid she'll be arrested.  Why does she think that?

Because she's in an abusive relationship.  Remember that video of Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito being stopped and released by the cops right before he killed her?  The striking emotional disparity of their argument, where she couldn't catch her breath and he was perfectly calm?  That's the same problem we're seeing here.  That's a cat toying with a mouse.  The cop who's questioning the male half seems to get that.  The Utah cops called Gabby the aggressor.

The boyfriend is obviously lying.  He starts out with, "We're having a wonderful night," sarcastically.  But obviously she's enjoying it much less than him; she just attempted to flee the vehicle that he's in control of.  And they're going in the opposite direction of her place.  So he's just driving her in circles "because he wants to talk to her."   Yet he complains about how badly it's going, in a perfectly calm demeanor.  It's clearly not a problem for him.  She's in complete distress.

This cop redirects the boyfriend from his line of bullshit about why he knows what's best for her, back to the matter at hand, the apparent false imprisonment in the vehicle.  If Officers Dude and Bro in Utah had handled their stop this way maybe Gabby Petito would be alive right now.

Back in the car, the young lady continues to blame herself.  "I'm the one who started it.  I got mad at him."  This is all eerily similar to the Laundrie/Petito stop, except in this case the police aren't siding with the perfectly calm male half. 

To be clear, if it were the other way around, and the male were freaking out and the woman perfectly calm, I'd take the same stance.  The abuser is calm and the person who needs assistance can't cope.   It's gaslighting, so it's being presented as a level playing field, an equal argument.

She still wants to leave with him after the police explain she's not in trouble at all.  She doesn't seem to understand that he's going to be arrested.   Ask yourself, why does she feel guilty?  Why does she imagine she should be arrested, other than the way that conversation was going while he drove her in circles?  She doesn't know the route to her house, doesn't realize that was what was happening -- unlike the police.

The police saw the vehicle slow down almost to a stop, her try to exit in front of them, then him speed up so she couldn't.  They had a problem with that.

The drinking age in Florida is 21.  So because she was given alcohol at the age of 18 at his apartment, he's going to be arrested probably just for that.  It's not clear to me that he would've been charged with that in other circumstances.  But the police are not cool with her being in this situation right now.  And she doesn't get it.  But they obviously do.

These people have only been dating for six weeks.  He's trying to wrap some web of ownership around her that I hope never comes to exist in real life.  I'm personally grateful to these officers for intervening.  I only hope it's a wake-up call for this young lady and she gets into therapy.