Love, Justine

I braced my feet at the bottom of the staircase in front of me and sat against the back of the door. The cops started screaming at me to open the door and bashing on it. The twins started shrieking in terror, and I started screaming back at the cops that what they were doing was illegal.

They didn’t stop.

Pretty soon, my father, why they had apparently called, showed up. He, too, started telling me to open the door.

The cops had no warrant.

I knew in my bones that this was illegal and wrong. They can’t just come into your house and take your kids for no reason.

This is America.

The bashing and screaming went on for about 20 minutes, but seemed much, much longer. Both of the boys had scooted over on my lap, so every time they pounded on the door, they were basically pounding on all of us.

I started screaming, “You’re hurting us!!!” because screaming that this was illegal was no deterrent for these people with guns and a battering ram that were terrorizing me and my children.

This finally stopped the pounding.

Their solution to this was to have my father climb a ladder to the upstairs bedroom, come down the stairs, and unlock the door for the police.

They all blasted in, at least six deep, and ripped my screaming children out of my arms. I would remember the feeling–the terror/horror–years later. It’s a feeling I would never forget–to see the looks in their eyes–all three of us sobbing and in immense pain. 

The trauma of it all.

That stays with you for eternity.

Then they tackled me, cuffed and shackled me. One of the cops feebly suggested, “Don’t hurt her…” while they wrestled me to the ground and nearly broke my arms twisting them around my back with my knees and face on the floor.

My father took the boys and left.

I had screamed so much that I was hoarse for two weeks. My vocal chords never recovered from that night.

I used to be a beautiful singer.

Never again.

The cops shoved me in a truck and took me to the hospital for a drug test. I was so dehydrated that I couldn’t urinate.

So they held me down and forcibly catheterized me.

It was like being raped.

Of course I tested positive for that one Percocet and the tiny amount of weed I had smoked, but negative for alcohol, which is what the cops were banking on.

I heard Copperhead exclaim loudly to the ER doctor, “Well, if she’s not drunk, she’s CRAZY!” as if that were a diagnosis.

It was.

They then started the paperwork to 302 me (commit me against my will) to a psychiatric hospital.

Off to Clarion Psych I went.

Again.