30-Day Blogging Challenge

domestic lack of bliss

http://www.my40.tv/shared/news/top-stories/stories/wmya_domestic-response-ends-f...

This is the hardest prompt for me so far.  I have tried 3 times to write about it, and now I'm trying again, a day late.

The story I chose, about a domestic violence call that ended in a man being shot by the police who responded to the 911 call, is hard to write about.  I am having a hard time getting an angle on it.  It is not funny to me, I have no clever things to say about it, I don't feel inspired to fictionalize it, and I most definitively do not want to write an opinion piece about it.  I don't know the facts, so clearly I can't comment on whether it was necessary to kill the alleged abuser, or whether it was actually domestic violence or a fight that got out of hand.

I think I am mostly depressed.  This kind of news story gets so little attention, the news was news because the officer shot and killed a man on a call, not because of the domestic violence itself.  If I were to look up reported cases of domestic violence in my area, or deaths from domestic violence...
I would find very little data.  ( I just looked)  But our wonderful local shelter has statistics about number of women and children helped by year.

I think it floors me that we are still living in a society where violence committed against women and children exists.  I do not know how to change it, I just know that abuse is very much more prevalent than we probably think.

I have a friend who is dating a new person, and he found out that she'd been abused as a child.  It occurred to me that it is very far from unusual.  At least half of the women I know have a history of childhood sexual abuse, or of sexual violence later.  What are we putting out there as a society that allows this to be happening?

Anyway.  Not my favorite topic.  I should have gone with "Local Olympic Athlete Breaks Leg."