Communication is Key

(Caution, this is one long ass post and possibly a little boring)

For some reason my mind is stuck on relationships and how fucked up they can be. As you may image, something has happened in my life that has thrown my mind into a loop and want let go. It seems that every where I look I see failed relationships or dysfunctional relationships in denial. I have always been aware of these relationships-I’m a cop for petesakes-but for some reason they are weighing on the fore front of my mind. This post is dedicated to the importance of communication in relationships and also gives me a chance to tell you about one of two incidents that happened on my Easter morning. (Let see if I can spin my yarn as well has Opinionated Diva did her’s).

Okay, picture this. Myself and Sergeant, let’s call her Lupe, were en route to have our Dr. Pepper and BLT at the IHop at the border of our division. As I am headed that way I take a quick look see to find out what calls are holding. There is a signal 12 and a 40-01 holding, both at the same location. I check the address and see that it is not far from the direction I am headed, so I decide to run by the call location first to see what is going on there. Since we have been getting eaten up with armed and home invasion robberies and I’ve had a hard on to catch a bad guy, I figured I might drive up and catch one or more before they can get away. (A 12 is an Alarm and a 40-01 is just can be just about anything. The 40 stands for Other and the 01 means that it is in progress).

Okay, let’s cut to the chase. I arrive there at the same time as Dallas Fire and Rescue, just in time to see a somewhat elderly woman standing in the front of her home just drenched in blood. Beside her stand s a young man, who turns out to be her neighbor. He tells me that the lady came banging on their door and said that her husband was knocked out. I get the lady, who is hysterical and incoherent, to take me to where her husband is. The first thing I notice, as we enter the house, is that there is no signs of forced entry and that the place in immaculately clean; It doesn’t even smell of old people (Whatever, don’t play like you don’t know that smell).

Turn on the light and there is the body of the woman’s husband, in blue pajama’s, laying on the floor by the side of the bed; his head in a puddle of blood. At first I think he has just fell out of bed and knocked his head against the end table, but no such look. As I peer over, trying not to disturb the body, I can see what is obviously a gun shot wound in the back of his head. I send the woman into the next room, with the other officers, that have arrived by this time, and whisper to DFR that I think the victim has been shot. Before I leave the room I am checking the walls to see if there are any bullet holes in them; jJust encase this was one of those random bullets through wall deals. No such luck. So, my next thought is that the wife has off’ed her hubby.

We sit wifey down in the next room, to calm her down, and start asking her very polite but pointed question; in order to find out what went on there @ three oclcok in the morning. She is still hysterical and making no sense at all. I am still thinking that the woman has off’ed her husband, but now I am also thinking that he was probably terminally ill and that it was a mercy killing. Problem is, where is the gun? And how did all that blood get on the back of her pajamas?

DFR confirms that the man has been shot and is DRT (Dead Right There) and now are in need of his name. They ask me the victim’s name, as if I had dinner with them the other night. I send them to get it from the wife, but she is still too distraught to answer any question. So, I see a pair of jeans on the floor, so I check the pockets for a wallet and possible driver’s license. Well, as I am looking into the pockets, I noticed that on the belt is a leather holster, but no gun. The plot thickens; I knew this old heifer had killed her old man. Who did she think she was kidding with this distraught wife act?

I go out to see if I can get Sgt. Lupe to see if she can get the woman to tell her were the gun is (by now we have moved the woman into the back of a squad car—no, she is not under arrest). It is Sgt. Lupe who figures out that the old woman has a big lump in the back of her head, hidden under her hair net, which she is bleeding from (which explains all of the blood on the back of her night gown). DFR , who has not left yet, takes her to the local community hospital. They do a cat scan and find bullet fragments in the lump at the nap of her cranium. It turns out that the woman has been shot, and didn’t even know it. That was why she was so incoherent.

So, this is the final break down, as we see it. It appears that the man, who was suffering from some type of illness, decides to do one of those murder/suicide things which are all the rage (normally with white folks, I didn’t realize that our people got down like this too). Oh well, so he shoots his wife in the back of the head, while she sleeps, and then turns the gun on himself. Did I mention that the gun was found under his body and had been fired twice? Well, as it turns out, the bullet didn’t kill her (talk about hard headed) and she wakes up, finds her husband laying in a puddle of blood on the side of the bed and goes into hysterically panic mood. Apparently the old man hadn’t clued wifey in on the fact that he was going to take both of their lives, so neither would have to suffer without the other. Ain’t that some shyt? That’s love for you. “Honey, I know you love me so much that you would never want to live without me, so I’m gonna take both of our lives to save you from the pain.” (And they weren’t even that old. He was just 54)
The moral of this story is, “Communication is Key.” If he had just talked this over with his wife he would have found out that she wasn’t down with this plan. Or, “If you are gonna do the murder/suicide thing, make sure you put two in your sponse before you turn the gun on yourself.”

I’ve decided that if I do ever find someone to grow old with and we are ever in this predicament we are gonna make a pact not to do the murder suicide thing. If we decide to end it we will agree that it we be mutual suicide. You do you and I’ll do me, because Hell, I might change my mine. Especially if yours looked like it hurt. I ain’t playing.

One Man’s Opinion. Peace.