About halfway through my run this evening, I hear shouting coming from the men’s room:
Woman: “Give me my phone!”
Man: *response muffled*
Woman: “Get away from me! I just want my phone back!”
Man: “No!” *muffled*
This goes on for a few minutes, but the only parts I could hear clearly were shouted. *Phone* *NO* and various curse words.
I go upstairs to the lobby to talk to the receptionist. I have no idea what time the security guards usually show up, but I know they’re there at night.
“Are either of the security guards in yet?”
“No, they don’t get in until later. Why?”
“I heard a man and woman shouting in the locker room, but I couldn’t tell if they were fighting or just arguing loudly. I thought maybe someone should check just to be safe.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m not supposed to leave the desk unattended.”
“Oh, hm…”
“Stop by when you finish your workout and tell me if they’re still fighting. I might be able to do something then.”
“Ok, thanks.”
So, I head back downstairs, passing the exterior door to the men’s room. It’s halfway open. A guy walks out of it, closing the door behind him as he leaves. I pause a second to get a look at him, and as I pass the doorway, a woman comes rushing out calling for help.
“Hey, please help me. This guy threw me against a wall in there. He hit my head against the wall!”
“Don’t listen to her. This is none of your business.”
“He hit me. Don’t leave me with him.”
Maybe not the smartest move, but I do let the girl kind of stand to one side of me, placing myself between her and the man.
He starts reaching for the woman’s arm, “Don’t lie. Come on. Let’s go.”
She steps back from him, “I’m not going anywhere with you. Leave me alone!”
In a feeble attempt to explain, he turns toward me, “She’s my girl. It’s just a –”
“I’m not your girl! I’m not even your girlfriend. Where do you get off?!” She turns to me, “Will you call 911 please? This *expletive* *expletive* hit my head against a wall!”
The guy starts weighing his options. I’m clearly not leaving someone asking me for help. He gives her a final dirty look. “You don’t even live here. *expletive* this. Do what you want.” And with that, the guy walks away.
I turn to the woman, “I don’t have a phone on me. I’ll walk you upstairs to the lobby ok? We’ll call from there.”
“Did you see him? Look at him. I don’t even know his last name. He thinks I’m going to sleep with him so he’ll drive me home? Look at my phone! He threw it in the trash. Wouldn’t give it back to me and it’s brand new.”
So, I let her yell and rant as we wait for the elevator to go back upstairs. I’m still unclear as to why she was in the men’s room with this guy if she didn’t even know who he was. Even so, voluntarily walking into a men’s room for whatever reason, does not justify someone attacking you.
We approach the front desk and Woman asks DeskLady if she remembers the man she came in with. She does and even has the apartment number written down. Woman explains the situation.
DeskLady asks, “Do you want me to call his mom?”
Jigga-what now? “I thought he lives upstairs.”
“He lives with his mom,” Woman explains.
Ohhh. How old are these people?? They looked around mid-20s to me. My age. I would not expect DeskLady to offer to call my parents to someone I wronged. Maybe they’re younger than I thought. Do young people physically abuse each other? Yeah, I suppose so. You hear all those stories in the news. And yet, “all those stories” are usually stories I hear from other people telling me about these horrible tragedies they heard about in the news.
Anyway. Back to this story.
DeskLady asks Woman, “What do you want to do?”
Woman looks at me, confused, uncertain. “I guess I should call the police?”
“That’s what I’d do,” replies DeskLady encouragingly. “But I can’t call for you. You need to call.”
I can see Woman hesitating. From the TV shows I watch, I knew she should at least call to file a report and find out her options. She could change her mind about pressing charges later, but she would have less of a chance of conviction if she waited.
“You could call the non-emergency line for the police if you want. You don’t need to call 911, but it’s probably a good idea to report this either way.”
“Ok, do you have the non-emergency line?”
DeskLady looks it up for her and a few minutes later, the police are on their way. I sit out front on the benches with Woman. Over the course of the next few minutes, a lot more of the story comes out. Some strange, some key to understanding the whole situation.
She’s known this guy for ~2 years, but doesn’t know his last name. They’re just friends and have never dated, but she has dated guys in the past who have hit her. They’re in their 20s, btw. She’s 22 and he’s 24 or 25.
She was at a pool with some friends earlier and when that pool closed, he invited her to come hang out at the pool at his building. So she got a ride over with him and they hung out for a while. When that pool closed, they went in to the sauna for a bit (which is why she was in the men’s room). Then, when she decided that it was time for her to go home, he wouldn’t drive her.
He made up some excuses, said he didn’t have his car, offered to drive her home after she gave him head, etc. He left for a couple minutes, so she took out her brand new [red? I have no idea what it was] cell phone and called a friend. When he got back, she clapped her phone shut. He twists her arm and grabs it from her. When she insisted she needed to leave, he refused to let her.
She starts screaming for her phone back. There’s some shoving, fighting for the phone. She gets pushed into a wall. She hits him back. She decides it’s not worth it and is just going to leave and call the police from the lobby. He relents and just throws her phone in the trash. She goes to retrieve it. He walks out the door.
Two police officers arrive in separate patrol cars. While they’re filling out paperwork from wherever they were previously, Woman and I make small talk.
“I hate talking to police,” she confides.
“Aw, they’re not so bad… And they’re here to help you.” Did I actually say that? I just walked out of a 1980s after-school special. (”You, alright!? I learned it from watching you!” Haha, yeah…)
“What do you do for a living? You’re not a cop are you? I’ve just been bad-mouthing them,” she claps her hand over her mouth in embarrassment.
“Nah, I’m an engineer. But all the cops I’ve met have been nice.”
“Wow. An engineer. I just started fashion school,” she laughs.
“Cool.” Quickly, I try to think of a follow-up question, besides “What do you do there?”
“I don’t even know what engineers do.” She sounds almost disappointed with herself.
“Eh, I know nothing about fashion either, so I guess we’re even.”
“We have nothing in common,” we laugh together, before the imminent pause in conversation.
We talk about Cops for a few minutes before the officers exit their vehicles and take our statements. The officer speaking with Woman was well trained, but missing a little something in implementation.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well, I’m just frustrated and angry.”
“That is understandable,” he recites from his manual on “How to Console Victims.”
“He hit my head against a wall! He took my phone! I don’t have to put up with this.”
“Of course not. No one deserves that.” Chapter 2: Everyone is Worth Something.
“He wouldn’t let me leave! He twisted my arm!”
“Wait, let’s start at the beginning.” Policing 101.
So she tells her story, starting from the middle as far as I can tell. But as she elaborates, she fills in details from the beginning.
I give my statement and contact info to Deputy Jr. Run upstairs to let Ian know I’ll be a little bit longer before dinner.
“Gonna be late for dinner. Gotta give statement to police. Be back in a few.”
Go back downstairs, listen to the tail end of Woman’s story.
Officer Robot asks Woman, “What would you like us to do?”
“What can you do? Are you going to arrest him?”
“Well, that’s up to you. You have a couple options here. 1) Walk away and, hopefully, never see this guy again. Or 2) I can go upstairs now and talk to him, ask for his side of the story. It’s up to you whether you want to go to court and press charges.”
“Do I have to go to court before anything gets done?”
“Possibly. If he admits to hitting you, we will arrest him today. And from what you’ve told us already, it sounds like we would have grounds to arrest him now anyway. He prevented you from leaving and held you against your will. That’s abduction. That’s a felony. He hit and threatened you. That’s assault and battery. He took your phone without your consent. That’s theft.
“I would like to strongly encourage you to take this to court and follow through on these charges, but it’s your decision.”
She only needs about a second of thought before responding, “I want you to go do that. Go talk to him. I want to press charges.”
