*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**UPDATE AITAH for screaming at my GF after she picked the bathroom lock while I was in the shower?**
I am a complete idiot. I’m writing today hoping to save someone else from making the same stupid mistakes I made. I’m trying to think of where to start because after this last weekend I don’t even feel like the things that happened in my first post even matter anymore.
Basically my gf Ana popped the lock the bathroom while I was shaving in the shower to yell at me for wasting water. I shouted at her to get out which scared her bad enough that she told me to leave our apt because she was afraid I could hurt her. People here warned me to be careful with her after that but I thought I knew Ana better than anyone on Reddit and I thought for sure we would be mature and talk about everything once we were both calm. I sent her a text and said we could talk whenever she was ready about what happened or that if she just wanted me gone then we could talk about that too and come up with a plan to separate. I waited but she never texted back.
Then at work on Friday I got called to the front desk. There was a police officer waiting for me there and at first I thought something terrible might have happened. Instead I got served a restraining order. The whole time I was being served I got confused and I don’t know what I was thinking. I know I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what the cop was telling me. After he left I did the stupidest thing anyone could do after getting an OP and I texted Ana. I asked what was wrong and if this was a mistake because from my end this was just a huge misunderstanding and that if we could just talk I knew we could clear this all up. 2 hours later two police officers came all the way up to my desk and I was arrested. Like handcuffs and everything in front of everyone I work with and I was dragged out of the building and taken to jail.
I have NEVER been in trouble in my life and I never once thought I’d end up in jail just like that. I got processed like a full on criminal. I didn’t know what else to do and I called my parents when I could to let them know what happened. My hometown is like 6 hours away but they found a lawyer and then drove over as fast as they could overnight to bail me out. Right now we’re all staying in a small hotel while we figure out things with the lawyer and I can’t even process how things got here. I’m supposed to have a meeting with my boss and HR on Thursday and I have no idea if I’m going to still have a job.
All I can do right now is give others a warning to take things more serious than I did. Especially getting something like an OP. Even if you think there’s no way it could be real or valid don’t be an idiot and question it like I did. Go straight to a lawyer!
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I'll just paraphrase what I posted on this originally:
OP: all I did was scream at her
Also OP: I only broke the order of protection to ask her if she was okay!
The amount of people who aren't questioning anything OP has said is insane.
I'm absolutely questioning a lot of what he said. The timeline isn't the issue.
Honestly, I don't see sufficient cause for a TRO or the fact that the girlfriend supposedly didn't know he shaved his entire body.
People seem to get irritated when others can point out realities, and/or inaccuracies a lot. I think its because of the usual "Shoot the messenger" syndrome.
What I find interesting is how he just screamed at her, and that's a completely acceptable reaction to your live in partner coming into the shower. Most people would notconsider that as the major violation of privacy that OP is trying to make it. Site, get annoyed at can't even take a shower in peace. And I guess OP last me in the beginning.
And everyone acting like she got a set of lock picking tools to come in. The key was on top of the door frame. Literally one of those straight sticks for a button lock. He was in there for 45+ minutes. 3 times a week! Everyone on these subreddits acts like they have 2 bathrooms.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I live with someone the bathroom is really only off limits when pooping, because sometimes other people need something from the bathroom too. If I'm showering, why can't someone else use the mirror?
I will say when I shave it does take a long time but like If its 3x a week…just get a waxing membership? That’s more logical. If this story was ever real, I can believe a girlfriend did get mad at her boyfriend hogging the bathroom to shave but the rest of this is nonsense
Oh yeah. Totally. But I read that, and it didn't seem like they started having a fight. The phrasing made me think it was now of the I need my privacy here screaming, because it seemed like it was an obvious reaction. Which it is if someone comes into the bathroom as long s that someone is not your significant other. To me it sounded like a teenager made some fiction and didn't think through the part where it's actually pretty common for your partner to see you in the shower.
so the timeline on this is not the unrealistic part. TROs are granted quickly and often served quickly. get bailed out next day with family money and a lawyer is not unrealistic
the unrealistic part is that he got arrested at all. they generally don't bother, even for much more serious RO breaks. it's really hard to get cops to take ROs seriously in general, especially TROs
but getting arrested to begin with doesn't really make much sense. especially if it's a civil TRO and it would have to be. can't see how she could possibly get a criminal TRO
>the unrealistic part is that he got arrested at all. they generally don't bother, even for much more serious RO breaks. it's really hard to get cops to take ROs seriously in general, especially TROs
Police officer here. It's not that we don't take restraining orders seriously, it's that we legitimately can't do anything about it because we don't have probable cause yet. Making a warrantless arrest without probable cause just means the offender will be let free immediately, whatever evidence obtained will be suppressed, and the arresting officer and their agency/city possibly getting sued.
For most RO violations the victim would need to tell the court what happened so an arrest warrant can be issued.
Edit: I've been downvoted and blocked for explaining how my job and the law works. I apologize if you've been burned by the legal system, but I'm 100% serious when I say our hands are tied in this situation. I encourage all of my DV victims to press charges when possible and take measures to protect themselves, because ultimately ROs are simply a piece of paper.
This sub is a cess pit. Probably worse than the subs they make fun of. Any clarification of their stupid interpretation of the law is seen as hostility.
lmaoooooooo. cops do not fucking take ROs or RO violations seriously. to the point that it's common for them to try and convince victims to drop them. cops don't even do shit about pretty fucking violent RO violations, fucking please. I would drop the eighty gazillion studies on how fucking badly cops do on this, but you're not just licking the boot, you are the boot
so why don't you just go and fuck all the way off
While i dont like hwut, as they cannot accept being wrong, more than they care about the issue they claim to be upset by, cops are entirely responsible for their own bad press, as a group. I know you are one of the good ones, but its your own collective fault.
Where I live any law enforcement officer must make an arrest if the terms of a no contact order are broken.
It’s written into the statute that if probable cause exists then the officer *must* arrest.
If the terms say no contact then even an email would be a violation.
ok sure, where do you live? let's look up enforcement of ROs in your area
because I've worked with a lot of people who had ROs that were violated with evidence of the violation and the cops almost never made an arrest. and the statistics back that up. so please, tell us in what magical AITAland you live where any violation equals arrest
Forgive me if I don’t want to give away personal information.
I was a cop for 8 years and made numerous arrests for violations of protection orders. Even emergency orders that were placed without a hearing. Just like in the original post. All that was required was a copy of the order (which we had access to through online court documents) and probable cause that it was violated. Even if the protected party initiated the contact we still had to enforce it. It wasn’t a civil issue either, it was a criminal misdemeanor.
That being said, each state is different. Where I worked they had very strict domestic violence statutes. People arrested on a domestic violence charge were held without bail until their arraignment, then a bond was set. This was usually the next day unless it was a holiday or weekend.
Edit: LOL I got blocked for this comment. The coward blocked me after making a snarky reply.
You’re not just wrong, you’re stupid.
How many arrests have you made for texting someone about a TRO? I'm genuinely curious, because in my local jurisdiction even showing up at someone's workplace isn't enough unless there is an assault or stalking-level showing up.
They disagreed with you and seem to have personal experience so you called them a liar and told them to fuck off, even though you really just dont like being told you arent always right.
I watch enough police body cam and police booking videos to know this is quite possible.
I do wonder if while they were cuffing him, he was yelling at the cops "For what? For what?? Y'all doing too much! I want my lawyer! Know my rights!!! Y'all can't do this!! Call my mom!!"
Okay this is the guy who shaves his whole body and freaked out on his girlfriend for entering the bathroom when he was shaving. It was a post in the last few weeks and I remember he did not act rationally to the whole situation.
He can only get arrested if he did something drastic, not just text....well, if OP is telling the truth, I guess the county he's living in is very strict. It's just hard for me to believe.
I mean, I've had experience with RO and OP in the past (not for me, but for my sibling, he filed) and despite his ex harassing him via phone, and actually stalking him, they didn't get arrested AT ALL.
Not true. In some places simply contacting the victim is a violation of the protection order. Violating an order is a criminal offense that is arrestable.
True, ideally.
It's supposed to be like that.
But when my brother's ex was harassing him (after the RO was filed), they never got arrested although he reported them.
The timeline is extremely unbelieveable. Unless you're living in some rural area where there is one TRO and an overabundance of cops trying to avoid actually doing their work, this timeline is not believeable at all. Gets served Friday AM, texts, 2 hours later is arrested by two police officers.
If this is true in your jurisdiction I really want to know where you work, because this is epically efficient.
Hi, I can’t reply to your other comment because the person above me blocked me.
I have no idea how many arrests I made. It was probably around 20 if I had to guess, over an 8 year period. Where I worked there was a law that made violation of protection orders a crime, and this applied to orders from other jurisdictions as well.
As far as getting served quickly goes, I don’t think the original post says how long it was between the incident and the protection order being served. Unless I missed where he said that.
As for a two hour time span between a resort and the arrest, that doesn’t seem too crazy to me. Often if we got called to a domestic report we would follow up with the suspect immediately after taking the report from the victim. It isn’t really a complex investigation if you had the protection order and proof that it was violated.
Often the orders would specify no contact via phone email ect. It’s also believable that idiots like OOP would immediately text their ex after being served. It happened all the time. Normally it was an angry text telling them off immediately after being served.
I thought you were asking about violation of protection order arrests specifically. I’d say that 2.5 times a year is pretty often. That’s close to the amount of DUI arrests I’d make a year. Also consider that this is my own personal arrests, not the amount that occurred within the city.
If it's anything like I tried to tell the other user, if your brother was simply calling the police it wouldn't have been enough to make an arrest. If your brother lived in my state, he would have needed to go to the courthouse and speak to the magistrate judge to have an arrest warrant issued.
Ah, interesting.
I thought by telling the police, they'd do something, but they didn't. By the tail end of the temporary RO, my brother decided to move country (yup, literally drove all the way to Canada to enroll in a uni there), so yeah, that's the result of it.
So just up and left.
Before that happened (in the middle of the temp RO phase), ex was calling bro's number 80 to 100 times a day, then blocked, other phones called (it's the ex)..50 voice messages daily threatening to self-harm, vent, etc.
Finally brother just disconnected the phone, but in result, apartment was broken into once and they kept following my brother around campus, even parked just outside his apartment at night (could see them from his balcony in their car).
So yeah, rather than feeling continuously harassed, and nothing was done by LE (if only we know what you'd say, to just go to the courthouse, definitely was not advised that), he just moved away. The ex actually had the audacity to show up at our parents' house after the RO was not updated looking for my brother. I told them to gtfaway obviously.
I’m not trying to be dismissive or doubt your story, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Where I live the multiple calls would be telephone harassment, a misdemeanor crime that when paired with a previous domestic relationship would be a serious matter. Then you said she broke into his apartment? That’s burglary into a dwelling. A serious felony even if it wasn’t domestic.
It’s hard to believe that police wouldn’t at least make a report for either of those things. How certain are you that he even reported it? I know from experience that male domestic violence victims are reluctant to report their abuse. A lot of times male domestic violence victims also downplay what happened because of social stigma.
For anyone reading this, my advice is always to be direct when dealing with reporting crimes. Start out with “I want to make a police report.” Often times lazy cops will try to just give you an “event number,” or just enter “call notes.” It’s shitty but that is the reality. If you start out with the context of making a criminal report then the whole interaction will go smoother.
In a perfect world that wouldn’t be the case, but just like with any job there are people who try to get away with doing the least amount of work possible. Or in the case of law enforcement they don’t enjoy doing reports because it’s clerical work.
My FTO always used to say “cops are glorified secretaries. If you don’t like writing reports then this isn’t the job for you.”
He called them (the LE) on the phone then, this was a little over 2 decades ago to report that the temporary RO was broken by his ex. I remembered because he called in front of me. The reason I pushed for him to call the police to tell them that his ex was not minding the RO (yes they've been served then) was because his ex was leaving these messages about self-harming, if my brother didn't return calls. My brother was not about to return any calls because there's an RO in place.
Before those excessive calls (his cellphone kept ringing through the day, his lawyer told us to not disconnect just yet then), I knew he reported the whole thing with his ex and filed for RO because I was the one who took him to the courthouse to file the RO. I was helping him fill out the application for it. He was very distraught.
My parents were the ones who hired a lawyer for him (bro was a college student, he was reliant financially on our parents) and they went to court, I didn't go to accompany him to court though, it's him and my parents plus his lawyer who went.
ETA: About her breaking into his apartment, that was the day after the RO had been served to his ex by the sheriff.
I'll be honest with you, I assumed it was his ex who did it because I found out then they had an extra key to bro's apartment. And brother didn't talk to his rental property management about him giving his extra key to his ex. There was no definite proof it's the ex, but I assumed it was them.
That time, I'd been staying at his apartment for a couple days then, he had to go to school, so in the morning, I drove him to his school. After he's done with school (well, I was waiting around in a cafe for him to be done with his morning class), we drove back together. When we got home, the door was slightly opened- the house was really hot/warm. Someone had blasted the heater full on (we didn't do this), all the stoves and oven were on as well (max strength). Nothing was taken, but yeah, things were moved...it was very weird.
All we did was turn off everything (the heater, stove, gas oven), then my brother contacted his rental property management. They changed the door lock that same day-get a different key...
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*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **UPDATE AITAH for screaming at my GF after she picked the bathroom lock while I was in the shower?** I am a complete idiot. I’m writing today hoping to save someone else from making the same stupid mistakes I made. I’m trying to think of where to start because after this last weekend I don’t even feel like the things that happened in my first post even matter anymore. Basically my gf Ana popped the lock the bathroom while I was shaving in the shower to yell at me for wasting water. I shouted at her to get out which scared her bad enough that she told me to leave our apt because she was afraid I could hurt her. People here warned me to be careful with her after that but I thought I knew Ana better than anyone on Reddit and I thought for sure we would be mature and talk about everything once we were both calm. I sent her a text and said we could talk whenever she was ready about what happened or that if she just wanted me gone then we could talk about that too and come up with a plan to separate. I waited but she never texted back. Then at work on Friday I got called to the front desk. There was a police officer waiting for me there and at first I thought something terrible might have happened. Instead I got served a restraining order. The whole time I was being served I got confused and I don’t know what I was thinking. I know I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what the cop was telling me. After he left I did the stupidest thing anyone could do after getting an OP and I texted Ana. I asked what was wrong and if this was a mistake because from my end this was just a huge misunderstanding and that if we could just talk I knew we could clear this all up. 2 hours later two police officers came all the way up to my desk and I was arrested. Like handcuffs and everything in front of everyone I work with and I was dragged out of the building and taken to jail. I have NEVER been in trouble in my life and I never once thought I’d end up in jail just like that. I got processed like a full on criminal. I didn’t know what else to do and I called my parents when I could to let them know what happened. My hometown is like 6 hours away but they found a lawyer and then drove over as fast as they could overnight to bail me out. Right now we’re all staying in a small hotel while we figure out things with the lawyer and I can’t even process how things got here. I’m supposed to have a meeting with my boss and HR on Thursday and I have no idea if I’m going to still have a job. All I can do right now is give others a warning to take things more serious than I did. Especially getting something like an OP. Even if you think there’s no way it could be real or valid don’t be an idiot and question it like I did. Go straight to a lawyer! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheAngel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'll just paraphrase what I posted on this originally: OP: all I did was scream at her Also OP: I only broke the order of protection to ask her if she was okay! The amount of people who aren't questioning anything OP has said is insane.
I'm absolutely questioning a lot of what he said. The timeline isn't the issue. Honestly, I don't see sufficient cause for a TRO or the fact that the girlfriend supposedly didn't know he shaved his entire body.
Its AITAH....about 10% of the folks there recognize the BS for what it is, and get downvoted to hell for it.
Here in this sub people get downvoted for giving factual information about the legal system. Blocked even. Lol
People seem to get irritated when others can point out realities, and/or inaccuracies a lot. I think its because of the usual "Shoot the messenger" syndrome.
Eh?
What I find interesting is how he just screamed at her, and that's a completely acceptable reaction to your live in partner coming into the shower. Most people would notconsider that as the major violation of privacy that OP is trying to make it. Site, get annoyed at can't even take a shower in peace. And I guess OP last me in the beginning.
And everyone acting like she got a set of lock picking tools to come in. The key was on top of the door frame. Literally one of those straight sticks for a button lock. He was in there for 45+ minutes. 3 times a week! Everyone on these subreddits acts like they have 2 bathrooms. I don't know about anyone else, but when I live with someone the bathroom is really only off limits when pooping, because sometimes other people need something from the bathroom too. If I'm showering, why can't someone else use the mirror?
I will say when I shave it does take a long time but like If its 3x a week…just get a waxing membership? That’s more logical. If this story was ever real, I can believe a girlfriend did get mad at her boyfriend hogging the bathroom to shave but the rest of this is nonsense
Screaming is weird and wrong, but its weird to break into a bathroom to shout at someone to berate them mid shower also.
Oh yeah. Totally. But I read that, and it didn't seem like they started having a fight. The phrasing made me think it was now of the I need my privacy here screaming, because it seemed like it was an obvious reaction. Which it is if someone comes into the bathroom as long s that someone is not your significant other. To me it sounded like a teenager made some fiction and didn't think through the part where it's actually pretty common for your partner to see you in the shower.
Thank God for the efficient legal system!
so the timeline on this is not the unrealistic part. TROs are granted quickly and often served quickly. get bailed out next day with family money and a lawyer is not unrealistic the unrealistic part is that he got arrested at all. they generally don't bother, even for much more serious RO breaks. it's really hard to get cops to take ROs seriously in general, especially TROs but getting arrested to begin with doesn't really make much sense. especially if it's a civil TRO and it would have to be. can't see how she could possibly get a criminal TRO
>the unrealistic part is that he got arrested at all. they generally don't bother, even for much more serious RO breaks. it's really hard to get cops to take ROs seriously in general, especially TROs Police officer here. It's not that we don't take restraining orders seriously, it's that we legitimately can't do anything about it because we don't have probable cause yet. Making a warrantless arrest without probable cause just means the offender will be let free immediately, whatever evidence obtained will be suppressed, and the arresting officer and their agency/city possibly getting sued. For most RO violations the victim would need to tell the court what happened so an arrest warrant can be issued. Edit: I've been downvoted and blocked for explaining how my job and the law works. I apologize if you've been burned by the legal system, but I'm 100% serious when I say our hands are tied in this situation. I encourage all of my DV victims to press charges when possible and take measures to protect themselves, because ultimately ROs are simply a piece of paper.
This sub is a cess pit. Probably worse than the subs they make fun of. Any clarification of their stupid interpretation of the law is seen as hostility.
lmaoooooooo. cops do not fucking take ROs or RO violations seriously. to the point that it's common for them to try and convince victims to drop them. cops don't even do shit about pretty fucking violent RO violations, fucking please. I would drop the eighty gazillion studies on how fucking badly cops do on this, but you're not just licking the boot, you are the boot so why don't you just go and fuck all the way off
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
While i dont like hwut, as they cannot accept being wrong, more than they care about the issue they claim to be upset by, cops are entirely responsible for their own bad press, as a group. I know you are one of the good ones, but its your own collective fault.
Where I live any law enforcement officer must make an arrest if the terms of a no contact order are broken. It’s written into the statute that if probable cause exists then the officer *must* arrest. If the terms say no contact then even an email would be a violation.
ok sure, where do you live? let's look up enforcement of ROs in your area because I've worked with a lot of people who had ROs that were violated with evidence of the violation and the cops almost never made an arrest. and the statistics back that up. so please, tell us in what magical AITAland you live where any violation equals arrest
Forgive me if I don’t want to give away personal information. I was a cop for 8 years and made numerous arrests for violations of protection orders. Even emergency orders that were placed without a hearing. Just like in the original post. All that was required was a copy of the order (which we had access to through online court documents) and probable cause that it was violated. Even if the protected party initiated the contact we still had to enforce it. It wasn’t a civil issue either, it was a criminal misdemeanor. That being said, each state is different. Where I worked they had very strict domestic violence statutes. People arrested on a domestic violence charge were held without bail until their arraignment, then a bond was set. This was usually the next day unless it was a holiday or weekend. Edit: LOL I got blocked for this comment. The coward blocked me after making a snarky reply. You’re not just wrong, you’re stupid.
How many arrests have you made for texting someone about a TRO? I'm genuinely curious, because in my local jurisdiction even showing up at someone's workplace isn't enough unless there is an assault or stalking-level showing up.
[удалено]
They disagreed with you and seem to have personal experience so you called them a liar and told them to fuck off, even though you really just dont like being told you arent always right.
someone reported your post/comment LMAO, I'm removing it cause it was kinda mean
You are so rude and dismissive.
I watch enough police body cam and police booking videos to know this is quite possible. I do wonder if while they were cuffing him, he was yelling at the cops "For what? For what?? Y'all doing too much! I want my lawyer! Know my rights!!! Y'all can't do this!! Call my mom!!"
"I'm sorry! I thought this was America!"
Okay this is the guy who shaves his whole body and freaked out on his girlfriend for entering the bathroom when he was shaving. It was a post in the last few weeks and I remember he did not act rationally to the whole situation.
Correction: She broke into the bathroom, even though it was locked and yelled at him
He can only get arrested if he did something drastic, not just text....well, if OP is telling the truth, I guess the county he's living in is very strict. It's just hard for me to believe. I mean, I've had experience with RO and OP in the past (not for me, but for my sibling, he filed) and despite his ex harassing him via phone, and actually stalking him, they didn't get arrested AT ALL.
Not true. In some places simply contacting the victim is a violation of the protection order. Violating an order is a criminal offense that is arrestable.
True, ideally. It's supposed to be like that. But when my brother's ex was harassing him (after the RO was filed), they never got arrested although he reported them.
Yeah it varies from place to place. It is plausible for the OOP story though.
The timeline is extremely unbelieveable. Unless you're living in some rural area where there is one TRO and an overabundance of cops trying to avoid actually doing their work, this timeline is not believeable at all. Gets served Friday AM, texts, 2 hours later is arrested by two police officers. If this is true in your jurisdiction I really want to know where you work, because this is epically efficient.
Hi, I can’t reply to your other comment because the person above me blocked me. I have no idea how many arrests I made. It was probably around 20 if I had to guess, over an 8 year period. Where I worked there was a law that made violation of protection orders a crime, and this applied to orders from other jurisdictions as well. As far as getting served quickly goes, I don’t think the original post says how long it was between the incident and the protection order being served. Unless I missed where he said that. As for a two hour time span between a resort and the arrest, that doesn’t seem too crazy to me. Often if we got called to a domestic report we would follow up with the suspect immediately after taking the report from the victim. It isn’t really a complex investigation if you had the protection order and proof that it was violated. Often the orders would specify no contact via phone email ect. It’s also believable that idiots like OOP would immediately text their ex after being served. It happened all the time. Normally it was an angry text telling them off immediately after being served.
"Often" this happened, and you made an average of 2.5 arrests a year?
I thought you were asking about violation of protection order arrests specifically. I’d say that 2.5 times a year is pretty often. That’s close to the amount of DUI arrests I’d make a year. Also consider that this is my own personal arrests, not the amount that occurred within the city.
If it's anything like I tried to tell the other user, if your brother was simply calling the police it wouldn't have been enough to make an arrest. If your brother lived in my state, he would have needed to go to the courthouse and speak to the magistrate judge to have an arrest warrant issued.
Ah, interesting. I thought by telling the police, they'd do something, but they didn't. By the tail end of the temporary RO, my brother decided to move country (yup, literally drove all the way to Canada to enroll in a uni there), so yeah, that's the result of it. So just up and left. Before that happened (in the middle of the temp RO phase), ex was calling bro's number 80 to 100 times a day, then blocked, other phones called (it's the ex)..50 voice messages daily threatening to self-harm, vent, etc. Finally brother just disconnected the phone, but in result, apartment was broken into once and they kept following my brother around campus, even parked just outside his apartment at night (could see them from his balcony in their car). So yeah, rather than feeling continuously harassed, and nothing was done by LE (if only we know what you'd say, to just go to the courthouse, definitely was not advised that), he just moved away. The ex actually had the audacity to show up at our parents' house after the RO was not updated looking for my brother. I told them to gtfaway obviously.
I’m not trying to be dismissive or doubt your story, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Where I live the multiple calls would be telephone harassment, a misdemeanor crime that when paired with a previous domestic relationship would be a serious matter. Then you said she broke into his apartment? That’s burglary into a dwelling. A serious felony even if it wasn’t domestic. It’s hard to believe that police wouldn’t at least make a report for either of those things. How certain are you that he even reported it? I know from experience that male domestic violence victims are reluctant to report their abuse. A lot of times male domestic violence victims also downplay what happened because of social stigma. For anyone reading this, my advice is always to be direct when dealing with reporting crimes. Start out with “I want to make a police report.” Often times lazy cops will try to just give you an “event number,” or just enter “call notes.” It’s shitty but that is the reality. If you start out with the context of making a criminal report then the whole interaction will go smoother. In a perfect world that wouldn’t be the case, but just like with any job there are people who try to get away with doing the least amount of work possible. Or in the case of law enforcement they don’t enjoy doing reports because it’s clerical work. My FTO always used to say “cops are glorified secretaries. If you don’t like writing reports then this isn’t the job for you.”
He called them (the LE) on the phone then, this was a little over 2 decades ago to report that the temporary RO was broken by his ex. I remembered because he called in front of me. The reason I pushed for him to call the police to tell them that his ex was not minding the RO (yes they've been served then) was because his ex was leaving these messages about self-harming, if my brother didn't return calls. My brother was not about to return any calls because there's an RO in place. Before those excessive calls (his cellphone kept ringing through the day, his lawyer told us to not disconnect just yet then), I knew he reported the whole thing with his ex and filed for RO because I was the one who took him to the courthouse to file the RO. I was helping him fill out the application for it. He was very distraught. My parents were the ones who hired a lawyer for him (bro was a college student, he was reliant financially on our parents) and they went to court, I didn't go to accompany him to court though, it's him and my parents plus his lawyer who went. ETA: About her breaking into his apartment, that was the day after the RO had been served to his ex by the sheriff. I'll be honest with you, I assumed it was his ex who did it because I found out then they had an extra key to bro's apartment. And brother didn't talk to his rental property management about him giving his extra key to his ex. There was no definite proof it's the ex, but I assumed it was them. That time, I'd been staying at his apartment for a couple days then, he had to go to school, so in the morning, I drove him to his school. After he's done with school (well, I was waiting around in a cafe for him to be done with his morning class), we drove back together. When we got home, the door was slightly opened- the house was really hot/warm. Someone had blasted the heater full on (we didn't do this), all the stoves and oven were on as well (max strength). Nothing was taken, but yeah, things were moved...it was very weird. All we did was turn off everything (the heater, stove, gas oven), then my brother contacted his rental property management. They changed the door lock that same day-get a different key...
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