I have to leave in a bit for tonight's concert. I took a shower to wash today's workout off, and as I stepped out, I could hear a huge racket from next door.
I know that a single mom and her daughter--approximately 10 years old, maybe?--live in the apartment next to mine. Our bathrooms share a wall, and over the overhead fan and running water in my bathroom (not to mention the Brahms blasting on my iTunes in the kitchen), I could hear a child screaming.
She screamed at full volume, yelling things like "Go away!" and "Get away from me" These soon morphed into "You're hurting me!" and "Stop!!"
I was horrified...and unsure. Is this just a childish temper tantrum, or is she being abused?
In the end, the teacher in me just couldn't let it go. I called the local police dispatch and reported it. The lady I spoke to was quick to ask for details and said she would alert the patrol. I don't know what will come of it, but I feel I did the right thing.
3 comments:
Jesus Christ, that's scary! You definitely did the right thing by calling security. I hope nothing really happened to that kid. The world needs more people like you who WILL call someone. Better a false alarm than letting real abuse slide.
wow, hopefully I would have done the same thing you did. I know it would suck to get the police involved if it was just a tantrum, but if the child's being abused someone needs to know about it. You did the right thing. Better safe than sorry!
I've done that before. In a doctor's office, even. A woman was there with a young toddler and slapped him repeatedly - really, really hard - whenever he would do things like, oh, the crap toddlers do. He would cry, and then she would slap him for crying. It's awful to watch/listen to and you just hope the intervention works.
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