Justice Delayed or Justice Denied?

By KG Farrell

Dear reader, if you’ve been following this series you know I have taken a bit of a pause between articles. Please forgive me, I’ve been waiting for events to unfold. I want to tell you about my journey to seek justice. It hasn’t been easy and I still don’t know how things are going to work out in the end.

First, I want to tell you that the night I fired my weapon to scare off my abuser, the police confiscated my weapon. They held it at the police department for about 2 weeks while the prosecuting attorney who is assigned to my case went on vacation. I was told they had to wait for her to sign off to release my weapon. So for that two weeks I lived in constant fear that my abuser would return. I have other weapons but only one firearm. That’s about to change. I plan to get a shotgun and a second pistol. My fear is real and it’s the driving force in this fight. Alright, I will get on with the story.

Once the prosecuting attorney returned from vacation, a detective at the St. Joseph Police department emailed her and asked if she would release my weapon. FYI I was told later that the prosecuting attorney’s office wasn’t holding the weapon and that it was up to the St. Joseph Police department to release. You will see that this is a common thread in my story and I suspect this happens in many cities and towns throughout our country. The police department blames the prosecutor, and the prosecutor blames the police department for not prosecuting a case.
In my opinion it’s time to stop thinking about blame and start thinking about fixing the process of reporting, of collecting evidence and delivering it to the prosecutors. They need to build a consistent, convenient process that happens exactly the same way every single time. I would recommend getting a consultant whose job it is to process build. It doesn’t take them long and they are very helpful.

Anyway, I was told that I could retrieve my pistol from evidence, I was also told that the prosecutor had decided not to prosecute. I was devastated. I hid in my house and cried for 3 days. I felt there was nothing I could do if the prosecuting attorney didn’t have the back of the women who get abused in her town. I just tried to get on with my life even though he lives approximately 100 ft. from me and I have to see him everyday.

Then Blondie happened. And I knew I couldn’t ignore the fact that we had a predator in our neighborhood any longer. It was just a matter of time before he preyed on someone else close by and I care about all of my neighbors. I decided it was time to press my case.

I scheduled a meeting with the prosecuting attorney who is assigned to my case. I agreed to wait until after the holidays were over and we made an appointment for early January. I was contacted to reschedule the meeting as her boss was out sick and she needed to attend her bosses meetings. I was fine with that, it is the season for people to get sick. Apparently, what she had was contagious because I was called once again to reschedule our appointment because now the prosecuting attorney working on my case was out sick. I tell you this to underline a point. She had a very long time to look at my case before that meeting. But she didn’t.

When I finally arrived in her office I was guided to a small sitting room with a couple of couches. No desk, computer, or obvious files. Definitely not her office. She sat on one couch and I sat on the other and in so many words she asked me why I was there. I’ll admit, that made me dislike her almost immediately. I do not like people who come to a meeting unprepared. Now, to be fair, I’ve been told that she misunderstood the point of the meeting. She believed I was there to ask her about the prosecutorial process for domestic violence. However when I told her that I wanted that information to write an article she immediately declined to participate. Now I hated her for sure! The question in my mind is, if she had no desire to give me information for the article and had no desire to discuss my case with me, why did she agree to a meeting? It was a waste of both of our valuable time.

She told me that she would take a moment and read the case which she did, while I sat and waited. She was gone 7 minutes. When she returned, it was to tell me that the St. Joseph Police department didn’t send her enough information for her to be able to prosecute my case. I asked her how we get that done and she simply stated (as if it was not going to devastate me) that she didn’t want to go back and look at my case. In a fog of disbelief, I thanked her for her time and I left.

I went home called the advocate who had taken quite a bit of her time to discuss domestic violence with me but was also the person responsible for scheduling that nightmare of a meeting, and left her a very rude voicemail. I regret that now, she’s very nice and I think she tries hard but she works in an environment where it is hard to get things done.

I went home and sat for a while tossing it around in my brain. I was momentarily homicidal and then suicidal, but only briefly. I decided to call the prosecuting attorney’s boss instead. I felt the response from their office was less than acceptable and I wanted an explanation. Yes, I went Karen on their asses.

I was extremely impressed though when she answered her own phone and immediately agreed to talk to me. I asked why it was okay for the prosecuting attorney to just decide not to prosecute a crime in this jurisdiction. I also asked her why it was acceptable for her attorney to come to a meeting unprepared. I also asked her what it would take to get this dangerous predator (who by the way is now using the YWCA as a hunting ground) off the streets.

She was of course not familiar with the details of my case as she was not assigned to prosecuted herself. She seemed very interested in taking a look at my case and wanted to touch base with me on Monday.

When we spoke she informed me that it was true, as far as she could tell that the St. Joseph Police department did not send her enough information to prosecute my case. She said she wanted to use my feedback to improve things going forward. That’s all fine and dandy but that’s not going to protect the next woman who falls for this man’s act.

So, I decided that I would call the Saint Joseph Police department and speak to the detective who was assigned to my case. I told him what the prosecuting attorney’s office told me, and I asked him to explain to me why they didn’t send the information necessary. I also gave him all of the information I’ve been able to gather on my abuser after his attack on me. He didn’t say as much, but I got the impression that he disagreed with the prosecutor’s office about what they had sent over. He told me he was going to call and speak with the prosecutor’s boss and me someone would call me back. That was yesterday, I haven’t heard anything yet.

As you probably guessed, I’m not going to stop fighting. One way or another, be it through the Drug Strike Force, the domestic violence prosecuting attorney, or the food stamp fraud that I reported. I will fight this guy from every angle until he is no longer around anyone that I love.

I encourage anyone who is told that they will not prosecute your case to go up the chain all the way to the Governor if you have to. We need to follow up the #me too movement with a #neveragain movement. I encourage everyone to post mugshots of their abusers with the never again hashtag so that we can warn other people who these bad guys are. Mugshots are public information so you can share them.

If a person puts their hands on another person because they are angry, they forfeit the right to live among us. We need more programs to help people who suffer from violent impulses before they commit an act of violence. We need a huge PR campaign out there telling people how to get help. Encouraging people to get help. I know there are programs out there now but they are hard to find and it’s hard to make that call so we need to make it easier.

We need more mental health urgent care centers. We have one in my town and it’s fabulous but I don’t know if the people I met there would be trained to handle a person who is experiencing rage and needs help right then. They should be.

So I will stop here dear reader. The next article will be more about the small number of places where men can go and rehabilitate after committing domestic violence. I will let you know what I can find out about the process the statistics on success and how we might be able to encourage our local politicians to fund more of these types of programs. And of course I will update you on my case.

KG Farrell is an author, activist and artist living her best life in Northwest Missouri. She has previously published two suspense novels that you can find here here.