Some of the names and identifying details have been omitted to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
Example 1
One cold evening we were called to a middle class neighborhood in Minneapolis by a patrol officer who had responded to a 911 call for a domestic assault.
The family – mother, and two adolescent children, were still shocked: the children were crying and the mother was shaky and bruised. Her husband had assaulted her and threatened to kill her. Daughter had called the police. When she learned that there was a clinician/advocate/police team available to offer her and her children crisis help, she immediately accepted and pulled the team into the house.
“Please come in” she said; “it’s about time we spoke about it”. Mom revealed that she had been abused by her husband over a 15-year period. She had never, until now, received any services for the abuse. She and her children had never discussed the abuse. Each time after her husband’s abuse, he begged her forgiveness. She only called the police once – after he beat her so badly that she was unable to return to work for two weeks.
Mom invited us – including the police officer with us – to sit down and talk with her and her children. As a family, they developed a safety plan. Both children were able to tell their mother how much they feared for her safety.
This case involves a monolingual Spanish speaking family whose 7 year old daughter called the police after father came drunk, hit mom and called the “other woman” he was dating to come over. As soon as daughter got the chance she called the police.
The child had witnessed violence many times and she made her own decision to call for help. The girl knew that her mother would have never called the police, because of the fear non-English speaking immigrants feel about interacting with the police, and the fear that if the head of the house is in jail they would not have a system in place to support their economic needs.
Although the child knew about the possible consequences, she did not hesitate and called for help when mom was getting hurt. The police intervened and the husband was taken to jail.
After the event, the child who witnessed the whole ordeal was feeling guilty and sad because mom was still crying and afraid of the consequences. When the MCRI team came to the site, the mom was able to ask questions regarding the legal process as well as about opportunities for her husband to receive help for his drinking, his abusive behaviors and the parental skills he was lacking.
The child was also never far away from the team, and so she was able to have her questions answered by the police officer, who gave her positive reinforcement for being so brave and for acting so quickly—knowing that dad could have caused more struggles if he hadn’t been stopped by her act of courage. The mother verbalized the fact that if she would have previously had the opportunity to interact with the police this way (as part of a team with a Latina therapist), she would not have hesitated calling the police.
Due to past experiences with language and cultural barriers, the police had not seemed helpful, and so she had been afraid of the police until her child took the initiative and called. The child had never had attention or positive reinforcement from a police officer either, but after attending a few sessions with the therapist along with her mother, she drew a picture of herself as a police woman.