Los Angeles, CA–“As a child I grew up watching my mother commit multiple acts of violence against my dad. The earliest incident I remember occurred when I was four, and my mother continued to be violent up until April of 2003.
“No one would help. Teachers, parents of friends, anyone I tried to talk to about what was going on at home basically told me I didn’t understand, and that my mother couldn’t possibly be the violent party. The few times the police came to our home, they would always be ready to arrest my father, sometimes getting so far as to put the handcuffs on him, and it was up to me to scream as loud as possible that it was my mommy and not my daddy so they wouldn’t take him away and leave me with her.”
In writing my recent blog post Cops Mistake Wife’s Allergic Reaction for Abuse, Draw Guns on Helping Husband–where cops were so convinced that a loving father was a DV perp that they wouldn’t listen to the man’s adult daughter–I was reminded of the Maegan Woods (aka Maegan Black) case. In my co-authored column Domestic Violence Lawsuit Will Help Secure Services for All Abuse Victims (Los Angeles Daily Journal, 12/28/05), Marc Angelucci and I wrote:
“At the age of 11, Maegan Woods tried to stop a domestic dispute between her parents. She soon found herself staring down the barrel of her father’s shotgun. She watched helplessly as the trigger was pulled. She is only alive today because the gun didn’t fire–the safety was on.
“Maegan was abused and witnessed domestic violence in her home for most of her childhood. By age seven there had been knife attacks, punches, kicks, and more. It was hard to leave–the abuser was the one who earned the money, and the victim was unable to work because of a disability. On numerous occasions they looked for help to escape the abuse but were refused. Why?
“Because in Maegan’s family, the abused spouse was her father, and the battering and child abuse were perpetrated by her mother…
“The anti-male bias of police policies was evident in the Woods case. During the 1995 shotgun incident, Ruth called the police after David wrestled the shotgun away from her. Maegan yelled to her mom, ‘Tell the truth!’ and Ruth told the police she wanted them to come because she wanted to kill her husband.
“Nevertheless, when the police arrived and David opened the door to let them in, the officers immediately grabbed him by the wrist, wrestled him to the ground, and handcuffed him. They only uncuffed him after Maegan told them that it was her mother who had the gun.”
Maegan later wrote:
“As a child I grew up watching my mother commit multiple acts of violence against my dad. The earliest incident I remember occurred when I was four, and my mother continued to be violent up until April of 2003.
“No one would help. Teachers, parents of friends, anyone I tried to talk to about what was going on at home basically told me I didn’t understand, and that my mother couldn’t possibly be the violent party. The few times the police came to our home, they would always be ready to arrest my father, sometimes getting so far as to put the handcuffs on him, and it was up to me to scream as loud as possible that it was my mommy and not my daddy so they wouldn’t take him away and leave me with her.
“Sometimes when my mom would attack, Pops would try to defend himself, just to get her off him, stop hitting him, whatever. Every time he defended himself, whether he left bruises or not, Mom would go get a restraining order. She didn’t have to show bruises or prove she was in danger or anything, just saying she was ‘afraid’ was enough.
“I grew up in this sort of environment and I learned the only way to survive was to watch every argument they had and be ready to interject myself as a distraction if I could before violence happened. I grew up paranoid and feeling like the safety in my house was something only I was responsible for. If Mom became violent, it meant I FAILED. That feeling would hit me like a bucket of cold water, but there wouldn’t be any time for feeling sorry for myself. My next task was to try to break it up, screaming, threatening, pleading, whatever. I had to make sure no details escaped me because if the cops got called they’d just believe my mom without question, and it was MY job to make sure the truth at least got heard.”