2 Weeks of Struggles and Victories

It's been a long two weeks since I last posted here, and much has happened.

The week before Easter, I was informed by my doctor that my constant fatigue could be the result of sleep apnea, I will have a sleep study Monday night, and he said that if this is sleep apnea, I need to lose close to 100 pounds in order to get the symptoms to possibly die down enough to no longer need a machine like a C-PAP machine.

Easter Sunday, I went to leave my house to go to the Unitarian church I am a part of, and heard a constant thumping sound, and quickly turned around after about a block to go back home, realized I had a flat tire, both front tires were too far gone to be driving on anyway, so I replaced them both.

Then this past Tuesday, the Psychos returned. Yes, the two from The Confrontation that I can't even bring myself to call my parents, because they don't deserve it. I was setting up a new lawnmower I bought in my garage when I heard "Happy Horse", my Black Lab/hound mix barking for a few minutes as though there was something he saw at the front of the house.

I heard a woman later at the back fence talking to Happy Horse and petting him, I looked out, and it's Mrs. Sociopath. I close the door to the garage and lock it. I called Granite City's police dispatch, and told the officers about The Confrontation, and that because of their attempted assault back in December, I would not come out of the garage until the officer arrived.

Despite telling the officers that showed up about how disappointed I was that the officer from The Confrontation didn't even ask me if I wanted them arrested, one of the two officers simply told them to leave and not show up or contact me again, took down my information, and had asked what had been going on before, then left filing no police report, and no arrests.

I was frustrated with the lack of response from the police department, and I knew how much good an internal complaint would do (none), so I went to Madison County's courthouse to try to file a restraining order. I was referred to a case worker for a local legal aid group that helps file the order.

She told me to fill out everything that had happened, all abuse and harassment, on the record or not. Despite listing this incident and The Confrontation (which both had law enforcement as witnesses to them), being forced off medication for depression, and being barricaded in the house and threatened with violence if I tried to leave, the judge sent a deputy to tell me (they don't even let people filing for restraining orders sit in the court room), that they felt there "wasn't enough grounds" for a restraining order.

I felt so defeated and frustrated that for a while, I considered going public with my story, under my name, trying to contact local media if any outlet would pick it up and embarrass either Granite City or Madison County into doing the right thing. I was talking to some online friends about it, and I was shocked at the response I got from the author and activist M. Dolon Hickmon, the writer of 13:24.

He went first to Granite City's mayor, then their police chief, demanding answers from them as to why nothing had been done, telling them that he would start making complaints to Madison County's state attorney's office (a state attorney is Illinois' equivalent of a county prosecutor/District Attorney), and Illinois State Police about their failure to do their job.

The Times Are Changing (And So Is My Name)

I have long hated my legal name for many reasons, from the fact that not many people know how to pronounce or spell my first name (although that had gotten better in recent years since it started gaining popularity in Christian circles), and the fact that my "mother" had given it to me, and my middle name was after my father. It felt like I had a cattle brand on my back from my so called mother, and I wanted it gone, now that they are no longer in my life.

Madison County's courthouse and county
administration building

So, today, I went down to the Circuit Clerk's office for Madison County, Illinois, and filed the paperwork I had printed out for a legal name change. I filed the paperwork for a legal name change, applying to have my first and middle names changed.

I have no attachment to my last name at all, but I figured that changing my last name too could get confusing for both me and everyone else. Maybe later in life, if I get married, I'll change it to her last name. I'm definitely not a traditional kind of person, and societal gender norms have never made sense to me anyway.

Illinois Jury Rules that Sheriff's Deputies Did Not Use Excessive Force Even Though They Tasered Suspect 10 Times

Thanks to blog/Google + follower AFrayed Knot for pointing out this one to me.

A jury in Madison County, Illinois ruled that excessive force was not used on a DUI suspect, Kelsi Baker, even though a sheriff's deputy reached into her vehicle and tasered her 10 times.

From the legal news publication,  Madison County Record :

""Not only did he reach in and taser her more than once. He reached in and tasered her at the most painful nerve in her body."

Baker went to the emergency room doctor the next day, who found 10 separate taser marks.

She later went to the police station to find out what happened. She saw the marks on her body and knew where they were from, according to Fenlon.

The event on the night of Feb. 6 affected her adversely, Fenlon explained.

"She has scars on her back, neck, legs. She has nightmares. She breaks up in a cold sweat. Her heart races. She has anxiety attacks. These are loss of enjoyment of normal life. She has a major depression."

Most officers will tell you, if a taser does not work on a person after 2 times, it won't work, period. Hitting them over and over again with it serves no purpose on them than to make them a high voltage punching bag.

Here's the real kicker of this story, one of the two officers involved, Jeremy Stumpf, the officer who pulled the trigger on the Taser, was part of a Saint Louis area Christian band called Dependent Soul, which disbanded in 2011, also look here at their profile on this music website, where he is listed as a band member.

I have met him several times before, back in my fundamentalist days, their band was based out of their church in the Southwest Illinois town of Wood River, they held concerts for churches and church related events for the youth departments of various congregations in the area. He always seemed to be a good guy, and I enjoyed the band's music when they came to visit the church that I was a member of, they liked to perform concerts at the youth department's annual New Year's Eve party.

Just goes to show that you really don't truly know what a person is like sometimes...