There was a Father in town who was always getting into arguments with his sons. Most of the arguments were over petty things. The Dad would address small issues and just escalate the situation. It didn’t matter which one of the sons it was, they always seemed to get caught up in a tussle. The father would blame his children and they of course would blame their Dad. At first, it looked like the sons were just terrible human beings. Barney afterall was a single father and a disabled veteran who could barely walk without the support of a cane. After dealing with enough of their problems I can tell you now that both sides were usually equally at fault.. The boys would do something minor and instead of just talking it through, Barney would resort to yelling at them like they committed the most heinous crime and they gave it right back to him verbally. This going back and forth banter would lead to a call to the police. With the limited jurisdiction that police officers have, there also were limited options to solve this dilemma. Since his kids weren’t committing a crime and we, as public servants , couldn’t even force the kids to listen to their parents. Frustrated by the limited available options we would leave the place without much confidence that the situation was dealt with. And so after we left the kids, still upset, would start yelling at their father about him calling the police for something so minor. All of this would like clock work lead to yet another argument and again the police would be summoned. This type of ordeal would just repeat itself for months at a time. The problems in particular were always worse when they involved the oldest son, Jr. Jr. and his father, Barney, were always often at each other’s throats. It got so bad that Jr moved out of the house the minute he could and that caused the two to no longer be on speaking terms. The calls also pretty much ended and we barely saw Barney after his “problem child” was gone.
One night after not having seen Barney for several weeks he called the police. Barney told us that Jr. let one of his brothers borrow his iPad and he wanted Jr. to get it back but didn't want to interact with his son. I told Barney to just put it in the mailbox. That way Jr. can get his stuff and you guys don’t even have to see each other.. Barney thanked me for the suggestion and I left the place to tend to other business. About 15 minutes later I get a call about two males fighting in the front yard of a house. Of course, it was the familiar house of Barney. When I got there Barney was on one side of the lawn sweaty and breathing hard. Jr. was on the other side sweating and breathing hard. I ran in between them and kept them both at a safe distance from each other. That wasn’t too hard because both men could barely stand. Barney threw out his back and Jr. was trying to catch his breath. I waited for my partner to arrive, which took a little while since he was the only other officer working on that day.
I went to Jr. and asked him what happened. Jr. said that he got to the house at like 1 in the morning and Barney came outside yelling at him because he was playing his music too loud. Jr. said that as they started arguing and then all of a sudden out of nowhere Barney punched him in the face. Jr. said that he fell back. When he got up Barney pulled out his phone and said that he was calling the cops and began to walk away. Jr. said that he then tackled his father and ran into the house to try to hide Barney’s phone. When Jr. came back outside and saw Barney still standing there, he charged at him and the fight was back on. Jr. said that Barney (remember that he is a disabled veteran) picked him up and body-slammed him on the ground.They both fell and when he looked up he saw me running over and it all stopped.
I looked at Jr confused and asked “why didn’t you just let your dad call the police?” Jr. just said “huh?” I responded “he punched you in the face for no reason. If you had just let him call us he would have gone to jail and you would not have gotten beaten up by him.” At first, Jr. just stared at me confused, and slowly he understood what I was saying. “Oh… I don’t know haha” that was Jr.'s only response.
I then went to speak to Barney, who threw out his back beating up on Jr. Poor guy was in pain probably from when he picked up and body-slammed his son. We brought a chair outside and had him sit down. Barney was in so much pain that he could barely sit upright and every few seconds he would moan in pain.
I was expecting to hear a different story from Barney but he corroborated the story of his son. Barney said that he was sitting in his house when he heard loud music coming from outside. He went to look where the music was coming from. That’s when he noticed that it was Jr.who was in his car about to retrieve the iPad from the mailbox.. Barney ran outside and told him to turn off the music. That’s when the two began to argue which led to Jr. cursing at Barney which in turn escalated into Barney punching Jr. in the face. I interrupted Barney mid-sentence to say; “you can’t do that.”. He looked back and said “WHAAT?” “You can’t just punch someone in the face simply because you don’t like them.” Barney then asked; “you are telling me I can’t punch my son on my property.” “Nope” was my answer. Barney looked as though he was smelling something extremely putrid.. Then he whispered “my son? … my property?” Again I responded “nope.” He looked me in the eyes and said “I was scared for my safety.” I said “sure you were.” Barney then continued and finished telling me the rest of the story.
I knew that Barney wouldn’t go anywhere because of his back pain so I walked up to Jr and told him that he was under arrest and like most people being arrested he looked at me confused and said in a sincere way “but I’m the victim.” I responded, “you were up until you forced yourself into the house in which you are not a resident to try and stop someone from calling the police, After that you came outside and attacked your father and it wasn’t in self-defense.” Jr complied and said “oh that makes sense. While I was putting on the handcuffs, Barney yelled “yeah that’s what you get!” While I was securing Jr. I turned to Barney and said “uhh I probably wouldn’t be cheering right now.” When I was done with Jr. I walked over to Barney and said “you are under arrest too.” Barney looked at me in shock and asked “why?” I looked at him and said “bro you can’t just punch people in the face.” Once again Barney said “but my son on my property?” I responded and said “ok a few things; One, your son was invited over by you to get the iPad and you never told him to leave. Two, he is not a juvenile so you can’t discipline him. Three, you punched him in the face and even if he was a child you would still have been arrested for child abuse.” Barney just stared at me stone-faced. I had him stand up to put the handcuffs on and tried to walk him over to my vehicle but he was in so much pain making walking very difficult. We decided Instead,to take Barney to the hospital and the very next day he went to jail. Not long after that Barney moved and we haven’t heard from him since.
Originally posted on my blog (https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/)
