A Woman's Abuser in a Black Robe

Imagine this. A woman lives a trapped life of abuse, subjugation, verbal assault, emotional disregard with vicious, relentless battering of the mind. Just enough to match the bruises left by strangling hands often found around her neck.

These things heaped upon her by the epitome of a dreg of society. By a mindless, washed up, drug pushing, crack smoking, waste of humanity. A living breathing pile of refuse feeding off of the benefits of society, slipping through the hands of justice over and over again thanks to the "work" of slimy detestable attorneys desperate for another win. A parasite for whom bullets cost too much to extinguish.

A justice system that ignores countless violations of a restraining order. One with so called officers of the law who outside the hearing range of society tell her"That's what you get for marrying a ni@#er." Before the blood is even dried from her wounds. Cops too busy showing off their type A personality b@lls to the subordinate society they are supposed to be protecting not spewing out detesitble racial slurs to.

Now imagine this same woman trying to get her kids out of this situation. With no one to help her. No kind of assistance from the local child welfare department that her taxes and ours are providing money to, in hopes they would quit cackling on extended coffee breaks long enough to actually fill out forms correctly.

This same woman, who is an emotional, financial, and physical hostage to a piece of trash is then forced to drive a vehicle he stole. Then, those ever competent law enforcement officials happen to pull her over, probably because at first glance she looked just a little darker than the "average white woman" and arrest her. Maybe its all Italians who are mobsters? (Nice profiling jerkoffs.) And who goes to jail? Most certainly not the parasite of our story. Not the actual thief.

She does. Justice strikes again.

Put on probation some would say she got off easy. Some racists and D.A.s with paper thin skins barely hiding their incompetent souls. She avoids jail, only to return to a different kind of prison at home. This same man, who continues to invade her shante of a santuary away from him, to steal money and property to pawn for crack. Oh, and let's not forget an occasional beating before heading out the door. In full view of the kids. Feeling no option, feeling that if she stays, she and her children will die; she sees an opportunity to escape. And damn the so called law in that state, her kids are at stake. Screw probation meetings in between life threatening beatings.

Flash forward to a year later and three states away...

In time she is able to find a real man, true love. Someone who only lays his hands on her to wipe her tears away after another fitful nightmare. Someone who not only has been willing to fight to show her what real love is, but is also an enlisted soldier of the US military. The same one that helps protect you and I as well as the pompous legal system in her home state.

Then low and behold that ever present long arm of the law reaches out across three states to track down this woman, such a threat to society and all, and halls her back to court. Her pleas for them to listen about her captivity and countless threats is thrown out. Because according to the so called judge, another fine example of the pathetic system we call justice in this country; she is a criminal plain and simple. I wonder if this judge is another one of those who thinks, "That's what you get for marrying a "n#@@er." Maybe "just" a sociopath with a gavel?

In the same city where there are areas cops are afraid to actually patrol. Where you have to go to sleep at night listening to a constant barrage of gunfire. (I know, I once lived there.) The same city that can brag about having one of the highest murder rates in the United States. The same city where you better not wear the wrong colors in a supposed free society lest you get riddled with holes. The same city where rapists, child molesters, dope dealers and similar vermin seem to catch more probation than jail time.

But don't be an abused woman without the finances to hire an attorney with a set of b@#ls to defend her properly. And by the way where are all the victims' rights groups? Collecting donations for all their hard work?

The prison that she escaped from is now taking a different form. One with real bars and filled with actual real criminals. For 3 1/2 years now she gets to once again pay for the acts of a pile of parasitic filth.

WHILE HE WALKS AROUND FREE.

I don't know where or how this judge got her job. But I hope she loses it soon before she locks up another victim so she can look like some comic book crime-fighter in a cheap robe. Faith in the justice system? Certainly not in that city. One where law abiding citizens are restricted from protecting themselves with a gun while the criminals exchange fire on the streets with AK-47s killing little kids in the process. It seems in Chicago, criminals and abusers come in all forms.

But some of the lowest come adorned in stupidity and pompous black robes.

Sent by a friend of Gang Intelligence / Threat Management

Feel free to forward to as many people as possible. We'd like to see this judge OUT of her robe, and not in that way.

smiling through chattering teeth

It was just another night at the juvenile "holding" facility. But just another night at that place was nothing to brag about, enjoy, or feel comfortable with. The usual disruptive sounds brought myself and one other staff member to the juvenile's room to find him standing there pretty agitated. That was nothing new but the metal chair leg he had in his hands was.

"Great." I thought to myself. What was worse in this microcosm of machismo was that his adversaries weren't backing down despite the threat of getting a skull caved in and being bludgeoned to death.

Ah yes, nice and volatile.

Angry groups are always far more dangerous than a single individual who is mad. They feed off of each other. Encourage negative behavior out of each other. And every individual within the group tries to out tough guy the other in the group. So here we are a couple of angry young gang members exchanging words with a couple of other angry young (did I mention fairly athletic?) gang members. And now a weapon is involved.

Something to note is this. Why did this kid pick up a weapon in the first place? To intimidate? Why intimidate? To cause hesitation, to create fear in his enemies. Why did he need to do that? Most likely because he was afraid in the first place. The last thing I wanted to do was make that fear worse. The more afraid an animal is, the more aggressive he can become.

To be fair I never had any personal problems with this one kid, the one with the deadly weapon, so I felt a little more at ease with him than some of the others there. It was a little easier to fake a smile. But once metal starts getting thrown around that kind of negates that comfy feeling too. I knew I wasn't going to jump in there in the midst of them like some sort of Bruce Lee / Chuck Norris hybrid ninja. I knew once physical action was started you had to be committed, have a plan, and have back up. We were a little short on staff as usual. I didn't know all the parameters or what exactly was going on. And I was too far away from the guy with the steel rod. At that moment, my smile was my greatest asset and at great risk.

What's that you say? Too far away? Wouldn't that have been the ideal place to be? Not really. Not when there was no place to escape to. What I needed to do was get that weapon away from him before things got really bad. And bloody.

If I stayed at arm's length or only slightly more away, that would put me right in the most powerful part of a swing of that chair leg. Not where you want your skull to be when someone is trying to knock one out of the park. So I had to get close. This wasn't some guy on the street either that I could pick up a bigger stick and go after. It was a kid. A kid bigger than me. Better armed than me. But someone's kid nonetheless. Someone's kid that despite being in trouble with the law, was still my responsibility to keep as safe as possible. So I took the Sun Tzu approach.

Sun Tzu was the Chinese philosopher that wrote the ever popular "Art of War." A book still used today in business and military strategy. My favorite quote from the book, "All warfare is based on deception."

I had to pretend everything was cool, that this was really no big deal, and that I certainly had no intention of physically engaging him. Big smiles, biiiggg smiles. Deception.

All so I could get close. That's the thing that any attacker has to do. He has to "get close" in order to carry out his physical attack. Many predators also have to get close mentally first in order to get close physically. So I used non-aggressive body language (yet remembering to keep my body as safe as possible.) I used an oblique approach to him as well. If I tried to get at him from behind that would equal aggression. If I ran or made sudden movements toward him, aggression. If I approached him head on, I would become his primary target instead of the other guys. So I approached with a calm, lighthearted (yeah that was a task) vocal tone, with the "calm down" hand gestures going. These hand gestures also provide a "ready to defend" posture as well.

Once I got in close I shot my hands down on his wrist and on the bar itself. I grabbed the bar knowing that physics would be on my side, making it a lever to pry out of his hand. I grabbed the wrist to stabilize his hand and keep him from so readily snatching it away.

Well it didn't work out all pretty and flashy like in the movies either. It wasn't a quick loopy movement with a snap of bone and then the weapon was in my hand. Nope, I kind of had to twist it out of his hand. But once I got it, I didn't care what it looked like. Now I had the weapon and he didn't.

Taking the weapon out of the equation seemed to de-escalate the crowd. Or maybe it was because "Mr. Tonio has a steel chair leg and is kinda pissed." "Mr. Tonio ain't smilin' no more." But the end result was what we wanted. No fight. No swinging steel weapon. No bleeding. No stitches or premature death. No one's kid hurt. No me hurt. Just paperwork and another "war story." Everyone happy.

Well at least everyone capable of smiling a full smile.

Here's what you take away from the story:

Groups are always more dangerous. Guilt and individual responsibility are diffused throughout the group. Its easier for a person to kill you when he feels lost in a group.

In dealing with weapons, and you are unarmed, the ideal place to be is anywhere but there.

If someone is going to start swinging an elongated bludgeoning weapon, (and you cannot escape,) you want to be within the arc of power. Not at the very tip of it. You don't want to be right in front of him either. They call it "kill zone" for a reason ya know.

Fancy is for the movies.

Watch your body language. It speaks volumes.

Don't try and be macho. Use deception. You have to get close sometimes and you can't get close if you're playing macho.

Fear=aggression. Someone who is afraid can be far more dangerous.

Smiling in the face of danger doesn't necessarily mean bravery. Sometimes its just part of being able to stay alive for another day.

Ahh...there. That's worth smiling over.

Written and submitted by our friends at A.U. Violence Management Services

We're gonna need a bigger boat...

The internet is like a vast ocean of information. You can be sure that in this ocean too, there are sharks.

Sharks in the ocean of the internet don’t often show their fins until it is too late. They can snatch you and take you under to a world of misery before you realize it. I cannot state explicitly enough how dangerous the internet can be.

While it is a great place to learn about other cultures, develop friendships, and learn new information, just like the real world, there are also going to be predators that hide under the beauty and mystery of this ocean in order to get to their victims. For pedophiles, abusers, and users the internet has become the ultimate hunting grounds.

How the Predator Gets the Puzzle Pieces to You

Everything you say and do online could potentially be used against you. The way you interact with others will often reveal things about you that you don’t realize and often this happens due to the efforts of the predator and how he engages you. Manipulation tactics are used to create an atmosphere of trust and to open dialog. In Gavin DeBecker's book, The Gift of Fear, he tells of certain tactics that predators in the real world use to get their prey.

Many of the same tactics that work in the real world also work online. What follows are some tactics based off of DeBecker's observations, but in the context of the internet. Many of these tactics may appear to overlap in purpose and meaning, however this is exactly the objective, that the tactics should blend as seamlessly as possible into a ‘trojan horse’ persona.

Sympathetic Charm: Appearing sympathetic, open minded and eager to learn combined with remarks that charm or stroke your ego may increase the amount of information you tell. Projecting a sense of empathy often makes the predator’s target feel more at ease to speak with those he / she perceives as being open or like minded. People like to have someone to listen to them. A good listener makes a good counselor. It also makes a good predator.

Ego Stroking: In conjunction with sympathetic charm, the predator may take opportunities to stroke your ego. Remarks, when properly employed, concerning fascination with what you know or how smart you are, what you believe in, and / or overall personality may prompt you to continue talking and in turn continue information sharing. The more superior you feel to another the more vulnerable you become to tactics of manipulation.

Self Degradation: Comments regarding himself as being inferior to you could make you feel the need to encourage him (save him) or maybe even let your ego show what you know and in the process reveal more personal information. This is related to ego stroking in that it creates opportunity for the subject to revel in his ‘superiority’ and knowledge base. If the subject perceives the hunter as an equal he may perceive him as a threat. If the subject doesn’t perceive the hunter as an equal he will likely perceive him as subjugate to him, thereby creating the potential for a “master to student” mentoring situation. Pride comes before the fall.

Shared Circumstances: Creating a sense of kinship in perceived struggles, similar historical backgrounds, or current affairs. Related to ‘Forced Teaming” (The Gift of Fear, DeBecker 1997), this tactic involves creating a sense of unity by using such terms as “we”, “you and I”, “us” when conversing. It is creating a false sense of partnership where none truly exists.

Volunteering Information: The predator may freely give information (albeit false) to his target that appears to be personal in nature. Information can detail everything from personal history to geographical location. This tactic is more convincing when this volunteering of information appears to be unintentional. The purpose of volunteering information is to demonstrate a sense of trust and to ‘obligate’ the subject to share similar information. He may tell you, without you asking, where he lives, hangs out, what his phone number is, or simply give you his full name. He will do this, so that you will return or “volunteer” your personal information. The difference being, his is likely made up, and yours will be real. If he wants to stalk you then he will have some important information to use against you if you aren’t careful.

Ego Challenge: When done correctly the predator may make a slight challenge to your ego so that you will feel the need to prove him wrong. He might say things like, “I bet you’re too pretty to talk to me.”

In Need of Salvation: When the predator presents himself as one who is emotionally, physically, or financially in ruin this may cause you, his intended mark to see this as an opportunity to come in and rescue him.

Misdirection: Keeping your focus off the predator’s intent is crucial in maintaining the sense of trust. Misdirection may involve creating drama where there is none, accentuating focus on contrived fears, anger, or beliefs, creating false concern and general spin of relevant information. If he is good, he may be careful not to appear too eager to pry into your life; he must in essence create opportunities to encourage you to come after him. Our sense of worth is often defined by our perceptions of how others perceive us. Ideally, he wants you to become dependent on feedback from him in order to feed into your sense of worth. If he is good he will make efforts where you are made to feel you are the one in control.

Don't get bitten.

Suggested reading: The Gift of Fear, by Gavin DeBecker (1997)

*****REPOSTED FROM APRIL 2008*****