Violence Against Children

[eema.gray]

Even as the "little wife" sitting at home, it's easy to get complacent about Ranger Daddy's job.  It's easy to get sucked into the mundane details of his work - traffic tickets written, contacts made, the domestic violence calls, and neighborhood disputes.  Even the attempted suicides start to seem normal after awhile.  Then a case comes along that turns normal upside down, turns all of our emotions inside out, often for many days after.

Tuesday night, RD arrested a man for beating his daughter to death.  His eighteen month old daughter.  Who died in my husband's arms even as he attempted to recuicitate her.  The soldier shook her, threw her to the floor, kicked her hard enough to shatter her spleen (the bleeding from that was determined to be the ultimate cause of death), and punched her in the face hard enough to shatter her cheek and jaw bones.  When RD got there and tried to revive her, he couldn't even get a proper seal on her mouth and was trying to breath for her through her nose.  He arrested the wife/"mom" also as an accessory because she stood by and allowed all this damage and destruction to happen in their home.

Whenever there are children involved in one of RD's cases, he comes home asking how people could do this to children.  They are our gifts to raise and nurture, not to tear down and destroy.  Yet it happens far too often.  The worst part is realizing this case was a rarity in Ranger Daddy's routine only because of the relatively small residential population of the post he works at.  Violence against children of this sort and worse happens every day.

The scary thing is, depending on how this young soldier decides to defend himself, he could get away with it.  A military lawyer will give him good defense but not roll out the stops, calling expert witnesses and so forth.  A civilian lawyer, which he would have to pay for, will bring in all sorts of expert testimony about how this guy suffers from PTSD and has traumatic brain injury, how he could be "triggered" by anything, even a child's cry, and it's not his fault he lost control because his brain just doesn't work right anymore.  Which, convincing as it sounds, is a complete line of B.S.  Ranger Daddy has brain trauma.  It doesn't cause him to lash out at Yeled when he wets the bed.  It makes him think he said the last words of a sentence even though those last words never left his mouth.  PTSD is usually triggered by environment, yes.  But it's usually triggered by environmental input that is similar to whatever happened in combat to start the PTSD in the first place.  It might be the smell of gunpowder during a fireworks display.  It might be a car backfiring that sounds like gunfire.  It could be a really bad thunderstorm that sounds like distant artillary.  In RD's case, it's been set off once or twice by a particular song that was used as pysch warfare against him and his men.  THOSE are the kinds of things that set off PTSD, not the crying of a child upset that she was punished!

And then there's the wife, who stood by and allowed this to happen.  First she said she was in a different part of the house and didn't know what was happening (military housing is NOT that luxurious!).  Then she said it was the child's fault because she'd been warned not to wet her bed.  It's not her fault that her husband reacted the way he did.

Some mornings, I hate people.

[mandamitch]

Sep. 11, 2009 at 10:19 AM

This is horrible.  I feel so bad for that little girl and for your husband for having to see this kind of activity.  You and I both have experience dealing with PTSD and TBI and know that that is no excuse for physical violence towards someone.  In our house, it isn't really allowed to be an excuse for any type of behaviour.  When someone has these conditions, it is there responisbility to learn how to cope with them so they can live a productive life.

Also, how can someone except an 18 month old not to wet the bed?  My son is 20 months old and no were near ready to potty train, let alone we have to tell him a bunch of times to not do other things that aren't allowed.