In the past two weeks...I've assisted in a murder investigation, a bank robbery and the was the primary investigator on a Felony child abuse case. Mom and her boyfriend decided it would be a good idea to drink a case of beer, eat ten xanax each and top it off by smoking some crack. All while they were watching not only her daughter but three other small children. When they got good and high they began to fight which woke up the 16 month old daughter. Upon hearing the screaming and seeing her mother and her mothers boyfriend punching each other to the floor, the little girl became frightened and ran crying to her mother to be consoled. Mom and boyfriend couldn't take the crying so mom started smacking the girl in the head and mouth, when that led to further crying they gave the little girl at least one xanax and the baby is found on the floor, face down, blue and not breathing, a few minutes later by her father who has come to pick her up after visiting a relative in the hospital.
Mom and boyfriend are laying on the floor too high to even realize he is taking the baby and heading back to the hospital with her.
Mom didn't even cry until she found out how high the bond she earned was. I've charged boyfriend with a few things to and there are more charges on him the more I investigate him. The newest charge I'm going to hit him with is failure to register as a sex offender, It's interesting what you can learn about someone once they make it onto your radar. He made bail on my other charges and is in the wind right now. Nest time his bond will likely be too high to get out.
It's midnight one week ago as I look at her tiny body laying limp on the hospital bed. Tiny blood crusted mouth covered by a tiny plastic oxygen mask. It seems almost perverse and terribly wrong to see a child like that. I look at her and I wonder if, eighteen years from now I'll be arresting her for something similar. Will she sit in the back of my car on the way to be booked and tell me a story about how her mother almost killed her when she was a baby?
This is the metal sky we all live under. Where people are shit and babies are comatose, limp and unaturally blue, lying face down on a dirty hardwood floor covered with used needles and crack pipes.
I want to run from here screaming.
But I don't.
Maybe someday.
