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Edited on Thu Apr-17-08 09:59 PM by Orrex
HouseofKewpie and I had put the boys to bed around 8:30, and we were watching TV downstairs. Scrubs had just finished, and we were chatting about something or other when we heard a commotion outside. A woman was greatly upset and begging someone to call 911!
We rushed to the foyer and turned on the porchlight--we didn't recognize her, but she was barefoot and alone, clearly freaked out and sobbing, so we let her in and shut off the porchlight and the lights in the foyer. We took her into the living room and sat her on the couch with a glass of water and a box of tissues. I was already on the phone with 911 by this time and explained the situation, then handed the phone to her. She talked to them for a minute, still sobbing, before hanging up.
She then called her brother, spoke very briefly, and got hysterical before hanging up again. We talked to her calmly and made sure that she was okay, and we waited for the police to arrive, which took about three minutes! Two big cops came in, and HouseofKewpie and I left the room while they talked to her. At last they told her that they'd take her home, and one officer walked her to the car while the other spoke with us for a few minutes.
He thanked us for calling and for taking her in. Apparently she'd had an altercation with her boyfriend resulting from some kind of interaction with her ex-husband. She and the boyfriend got into a fight while he was driving, and she tried several times to jump out of the car. He got her by the throat and was running red lights until he had to stop, at which point she bashed him in the face and was able to escape, losing both shoes in the process.
She walked for quite a few blocks, not knowing where she was, and crying out for someone to call the police. We were apparently the first ones to hear and/or respond, which I find a little troubling. She was basically unharmed but very upset. To be honest, she was kind of lucky that this happened here, in a fairly decent neighborhood. If she'd been lost, disoriented, and stumbling around barefoot in a rougher part of town, who knows what might have happened next?
Shortly after the police departed, our phone rang. We let the machine get it, but there was no message, so I star-69'ed and called back. It was her mother--I gather that the brother lives with her--who was in a panic trying to find out what was going on! I told her that her daughter (who's 34, incidentally) had left with the police a few minutes earlier. She thanked me profusely for helping her daughter and for calling back, but really it just seemed like the right thing to do.
The police assured us that the guy poses no threat to us--he didn't know where the woman was, and I'm pretty sure that she didn't either. Still, I've seen two cruisers go down the street since that time, so I'm glad to know that they're keeping an eye on the area.
Very exciting! What did you do with your evening?
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