Skywalk cop...

In February of 2016, my abusive husband at the time called the police on me because I locked myself in a room to avoid him while he was high. A couple of DPD officers showed up to our home. The officers, invited into my home by my abuser, made me come out to talk to them. Standing about 10 feet away from where my abuser stood able to hear everything I said, one of the officers pressured me to tell them about anything abusive my husband had done that day or in the past. I relented and divulged some details about his abuse - that he would get high and clean his guns to threaten me, that he would get high and point his loaded rifle out the windows of our apartment towards a public park across the street to "test the scope," that he was getting high by abusing medications prescribed to him. The police told me (and my abuser since he was right there and could hear this conversation) they couldn't do anything because he was high on drugs prescribed to him (there were no illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia in the house), rifles are legal in this state without a permit, and he hadn't pointed a loaded gun directly at me. In that one response to my abuser’s 911 call on me for doing nothing but hiding from him, the Duluth police effectively solidified my abuser’s message to me that he was in complete control and could literally get the cops to help him terrorize me. The police left me with a half sheet of blue paper with some crisis hotlines printed on it that they said I could call if I “needed help.” As if I didn’t already need help. As if they didn’t just participate in terrorizing me. As if they didn’t just send my abuser the very clear message that he was getting away with abusing me and reinforce for him the exact rules that he could continue to follow to keep abusing me with impunity. Months later, I finally escaped. I fled my home on foot with a backpack of clothes and my dog. My abuser was, I think, experiencing some kind of drug-induced psychosis that day. He hadn’t slept in days and he was methodically moving all of our belongings into our bedroom - using a drill to screw the door closed every time he went into the room and every time he left the room to gather more stuff. When I made the decision to leave and quickly tried to pack bare necessities in a backpack, he cornered me and stared at me with his hollow, empty, drugged out eyes while he poured water into my backpack. I was able to flee, I did make it out alive. I called the police both because I feared for myself and for my abuser harming himself due to his drug abuse and state of mind at the time. I could tell the domestic violence officer that I was connected with was waiting for me to say some kind of magic phrase before taking action, without directly telling me what my options were, or what I needed to day. Essentially the conversation went - we knocked on the door and he’s not answering, we can’t go in the house to check on him unless “someone who lives there” let’s us in... It felt as though they were being careful to not make it seem as though I had to physically go back to the home and let them in, but that actually that was what I would have had to do to grant them access to the home. Their communication was far from direct and it left me feeling unsure and like this was a hopeless situation. In that same conversation, I told the officer that immediately after I left, my abuser began to list all of my belongings for sale on craigslist. To this, at least, they did give me a direct answer, which was, “we don’t get involved in domestic property disputes.” They said they could escort me into the home to ensure I was safe so I could collect my belongings, but if my husband disputed anything I wanted to take, they were not going to get involved, and they would not let me take it. My abuser continued to have all the power, supported by police officers and the laws. I had to abandon all of my belongings. For days, I knew he was still camped out in our home, blocks away from where I was staying on a friend’s couch, systematically destroying or selling EVERY SINGLE material possession I had that I didn’t manage to take with me in my one backpack of stuff. And I couldn’t do anything about it. I tried to get help by following the rules I had been raised to believe in. Someone is hurting me, so I’m supposed to call the police. I did. I was told that the way I was being hurt, the way the abuse was happening, wasn’t technically against the law. After I made the decision to leave, nearly every step I took, I was faced with a situation that seemed so crappy, it almost seemed better to go back to my crappy, but familiar abusive relationship. The Duluth police provided me with no help in navigating the system. Although they spoke to me directly during two separate incidents where I was in crisis and in danger, they offered nothing beyond sometimes vague answers in response to questions that I asked them. They gave me no guidance on how to navigate this beyond that blue piece of paper with some crisis hotlines. The Duluth police were complicit in my abuse and they emboldened my abuser.