hmmm here is a question.....

[Stormymystic]

In light of the thread Texas Justice, and some post from there, I had to ask ow you guys would act in this situation, this is a true story that happened to me and my family, so here it is

It was March 22 2002, 3 days after my 26th Birthday, and decided to have a party at the local bar, in attendence was 4 of mt friends, my parents, my second oldest brother, and my husband and I and 2 of his friends from work, we were having a great time, dancing singing karaoke and played pool, as time went on, the group started dwindeling, until there was oly my 4 friends my brother, husband and me, we decided to take my brother and 2 of my friends to my friends house and drop them of, while the rest of us went to the liquor store and got our favorit hard liquor, and my husband got me a hotel room for my birthday so I could have a night away from the kids, it was 2 blocks away from my home, you could walk out of the room and see my home, so we decided to go there and get drunk, but went back to my house first because I had a stange feeling, and told the babysitter(the couples oldest daughter and her little brothers) to keep the door locked at all times and not to let ANYONE in unless it was us, so we got to the room, and started driking and watching cable, when the telephone rang, it was the front desk, asking if we knew a girl named Melissa and 2 boys named Anton and Alex, and we freaked out, that was my friends kids, someone had broken into my home and threw them out, so everyone started splitting up and deciding what to do, while I was terrified for my kids, we soon found out is was my brother who had broken in, my husband took off down the street, my female friend was on the phone with 911, her husband was at the front desk getting the kids, remember this, it was 27 degrees (f) that night, and the youngest had no clothes on save for his sisters sweat shirt, she was wearing a lite shirt, and I decided to walk down there, my female friend got off the phone and jumped in the car, she offered me a lift, but I wanted her to get on down there, as I got to the end of the road, my husband had found my brother outside, as I turned the corner, he was picking up a child off of my brothers chest, I could not tell which one it was, or if they were even ok, I stopped and caught my breath, my husband took the child home, then came back and picked my brother up my his throat, and slammed him to the ground, rupturing his ear drum, my husband told him that he had crossed the line when he messed with our kids( he has been trying to get my husband to fight since we met) I got to the house, and counted my children, broke down and cried then went and grabbed the first thing I could find, a broom, and went out to kill my brother, he had my 4 month old baby out in the cold night air while she was already sick, wearing nothing but a lite newborn gown, my husband and the male friend caught me just as I started to swing the broom and the friend hid the broom cause the cops had just pulled up, when they put him in the car, everyone made me go home, and I sat there crying and freaking out, all I kept thinking was what if he had landed on her instead of the other way around?..... a neighbor, who had also been looking for him because he had broke into their house first, sat and calmed me down for a little while, then I called my parents and was screaming and yelling at them about what their precious son had done, They sent my oldest brother over to investigate, and my husband went off on him for a second, and then he calmed down and told my brother what had happened, then the next day my grandmother started calling me and yelling and blaming me for everything, she oes not really like me, and when it had gone way to far, to where my brother was going to get away with what he had done because she was forcing me with guilt to speak to a mental illness lawyer to get the charges dropped, my husband went off on her and forbid her to talk to me again, he also made sure that there was no way I could drop the charges, and when my mom found that out, she came over threating me, and was trying to fight me, my friends, neighbors, and husband were keeping me in the yard, she would not come in it, and we told her if she did not leave, we would call the cops, she kept on, and she knew the cops would take her to jail if they found her behind the wheel, she has no license, and it happened that the arresting officer came by at tat time, and told my mother to leave, and if she caught her driving again se would go to jail, then she turned to me and lectured me about needing to stay calm until the charges were in place, after time went on, they placed a no contact order on my brother, so that if I talked to him, or him to me, we would both be in trouble, we went to court 3 times over this, and each time we begged our lawyers to make him get help, we did not wat him to go to prison, he is schistophrenic(or however you spell it) and was heavily using drugs, ot taking his seizure meds and drinking way to much, the last time, my oldest brother and uncle saw how my grandmother was behaving, she threathend us in the court room, we told our lawyer, and he kept a watch on it, he also asked why my brother would not take the plea they offered, and we told him to talk to my brother, because they were going through the lawyer and my grandmother, who was declining it, sayig it was my fault and not my brothers because I bought him the beer, but my brother saw the plea, and said yes he would take it, the judge had a heart attack damn near it, when he read the plea, the charges were as follows
endangerment of minors 6 counts
breaking and entering 2 counts
false inprisonment 1 count
resisting arrest 3 counts
the plea is as follows
3 years probation, 6 months weekly check in, and monthly after that, manditory drug and menatl treatment, and manditory use of his proper meds
this was fine with us, but the judge was on the verge of over rulling it, but because my brother was honest in the fact that he did what he was charged with the judge allowed it, but my brothers lawyer was crazy, and was telling te judge that he did ot belive my brother was guilty and kept on, the judge asked im if he would like to put my brother on a jury trial in which his admiting he was guilty would be taken in account, and my brother and uncle were grabig him and telling him to get quiet, so my question is.......
How would you have handle this situation? the same or differently? and please explain [img]smile.gif[/img]


oh and ps, now that my brother is clean and sober, he is in church, we are now talking again, and he sees the kids under supervision, ad he loves them to no end, he says the reason he went in in the first place was the aby was screaming and crying, and the girl was ot taking care of her, afterr careful remembering of the night, I find that I belive him to a degree, there was a baby bottle full sitting on the sink, when we changed her diaper, she was soaked and leaking, so yes I do belive in his mind at the time he thought he was doing right

[Lovisa]

That's a hard question to answer...I think I would have called the cops I mean u didn't know in the first place who it was, but puttin' ur brother into jail feels kinda bad...
Well I think u did the best u could, and blame urself is nothin' you should do, and u don't, I think u handle it pretty well [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Bruce The Aussie]

wow, thats the longest sentance i've ever seen. a 1244 word sentance. impressive.
i'm not sure what i would've done. i'd probably of run home to find out what was going on wilst the others called the cops.
sounds like pretty much everything turned out okay in the end so what you did was probably the best thing.

[Sigmar]

Originally posted by Bruce The Aussie: wow, thats the longest sentance i've ever seen. a 1244 word sentance. impressive.

Well, you don't have any proper sentences in your post Remember they start with capital letters

Stormymystic, I can honestly say I wouldn't know how to handle that situation.

[ 06-19-2003, 05:40 AM: Message edited by: Sigmar ]

[harleyquinn]

Well Stormy, I know it hurts to have to call the cops on your own brother, but you need to protect your kids first. No matter who gave the guy the beer, he's an adult, and needs to take responsibility for his own actions, until he learns to do that, I'd make sure those visits are VERY supervised.
I think you did the right thing and I think your brother should consider himself lucky that he got off as light as he did. As for the family members that were defending him, those are called enablers and as long as they act like that, they will continue to do more harm then good to him.
Glad to hear everything seems to be working out for you and your brother!!

[khazadman]

If it was my kids? Let's just say that my brother-in-law would remember to never mess with my kids again. When he got out of the hospital that is.

[Indemaijinj]

From what I understood of the post (reading posts without proper punctuation is actually quite difficult) you did the best thing you could have done.

Anything else would probably have placed everyone (including the kids) in an even more precarious situations.

And BTW what is the definition of an enabler? I don't know that term.

[harleyquinn]

Well, in the terms of someone with an alcohol or drug abuse, and enabler is someone who, rather than help the person get better in terms of knowing not to give them what they "crave" and admitting that they have a problem does things like a) deny there is a problem, b) ignore it and hope it'll go away, c) may make excuses for the person's behavoir.
Basically, denying that there's a problem does not help the person get any better. I know that someone can't get help until they want it for themselves, but people that are enablers make it hard for those people to get better even though they may think they are doing nothing wrong since they're not giving those people their drug of choice directly. Maybe someone else has a better definintion, though.

[Animal]

Family or no family, what your brother did plain and simple was break the law, endangering the lives of children and refusing any type of help in that situation. Irregardless of whether your brother thought he was acting properly or not, laws were broken and police officers were called to the seen.

Of course, the question does arise that if he was on medication, then why was he drinking? Unfortunately this case seems to be six of one, half a dozen of the other with both parties having some form of responsibility for the actions that took place that night. Your husbands assault certainly didn't help matters much, nor did the chaos the ensued when the first phone call was received.

As an ex police officer, I've seen many domestic disputes, a lot of which have gotten out of control very easily due to alcohol and pig headedness.

The biggest mistake in this entire situation was mixing alcohol and your family. It's fine to get a way for a weekend for a good time, just leave the kids with a responsible care giver, and have the party well away from your home.

[Kaltia]

For Reeka and Bruce; apologies to Stormy, we aren't picking on you at all. Apologies *Hugs*

In light of the thread Texas Justice, and some posts from there, I had to ask how you guys would act in this situation; this is a true story that happened to me and my family, so here it is:

It was March 22 2002, 3 days after my 26th Birthday; and I decided to have a party at the local bar. In attendence were 4 of my friends, my parents, my second oldest brother, my husband and I and 2 of his friends from work. We were having a great time, dancing, singing karaoke and playing pool. As time went on, the group started dwindeling; until there was only my 4 friends, my brother, husband and I. We decided to take my brother and 2 of my friends to my friends house and drop them off, while the rest of us went to the liquor store and got our favorit hard liquor. My husband got me a hotel room for my birthday so I could have a night away from the kids; it was 2 blocks away from my home. You could walk out of the room and see my home, so we decided to go there and get drunk; but went back to my house first, however, because I had a stange feeling, and told the babysitter(the couple's oldest daughter and her little brothers) to keep the door locked at all times and not to let ANYONE in unless it was us.

We got to the room, and started drinking and watching cable, when the telephone rang. It was the front desk, asking if we knew a girl named Melissa and 2 boys named Anton and Alex; we freaked out. That was my friend's kids! Someone had broken into my home and thrown them out. Everyone started splitting up and deciding what to do, while I was terrified for my kids. We soon found out it was my brother who had broken in; my husband took off down the street, my female friend was on the phone with 911, her husband was at the front desk getting the kids. Remember this, it was 27 degrees (f) that night, and the youngest had no clothes on save for his sister's sweat shirt; she was wearing a lite shirt. I decided to walk down there; my female friend got off the phone and jumped in the car. She offered me a lift, but I wanted her to get on down there; as I got to the end of the road, my husband had found my brother outside. As I turned the corner, he was picking up a child off of my brothers chest. I could not tell which one it was, or if they were even ok.

I stopped and caught my breath, my husband took the child home; then came back and picked my brother up my his throat, and slammed him to the ground. He ruptured my brother's ear drum,. My husband told him that he had crossed the line when he messed with our kids (he has been trying to get my husband to fight since we met). I got to the house and counted my children, broke down and cried, then went and grabbed the first thing I could find. It was a broom. I went out to kill my brother, because he had my 4 month old baby out in the cold night air while she was already sick, wearing nothing but a lite newborn gown.

My husband and the male friend caught me just as I started to swing the broom and the friend hid the broom cause the cops had just pulled up. When they put him in the car, everyone made me go home, and I sat there crying and freaking out. All I could think of was what if he had landed on her instead of the other way around?..... A neighbor, who had also been looking for him because he had broke into their house first, sat and calmed me down for a little while, then I called my parents and was screaming and yelling at them about what their precious son had done. They sent my oldest brother over to investigate, and my husband went off on him for a second; then he calmed down and told my brother what had happened. The next day my grandmother started calling me and yelling and blaming me for everything. She does not really like me, and when it had gone way too far; to where my brother was going to get away with what he had done, because she was forcing me, with guilt, to speak to a mental illness lawyer to get the charges dropped. My husband went off on her, and forbid her to talk to me again. He also made sure that there was no way I could drop the charges, and when my mom found that out, she came over threating me. She was trying to fight me; my friends, neighbors, and husband were keeping me in the yard, she would not come in it, and we told her if she did not leave, we would call the cops. She kept on, and she knew the cops would take her to jail if they found her behind the wheel. She has no license, and it happened that the arresting officer came by at that time, and told my mother to leave; if she caught her driving again she would go to jail. Then she turned to me and lectured me about needing to stay calm until the charges were in place.

After time went on, they placed a no contact order on my brother; so that if I talked to him, or him to me, we would both be in trouble. We went to court 3 times over this, and each time we begged our lawyers to make him get help. We did not want him to go to prison; he is schizophrenic and was heavily using drugs, as well as not taking his seizure meds and drinking way too much.

The last time, my oldest brother and uncle saw how my grandmother was behaving. She threatend us in the court room; we told our lawyer, and he kept a watch on it. He also asked why my brother would not take the plea they offered, and we told him to talk to my brother, because they were going through the lawyer and my grandmother-who was denying it, saying it was my fault and not my brother's; I bought him the beer. My brother saw the plea, and said yes he would take it. The judge damn nearhad a heart attack when he read the plea. The charges were as follows:
Endangerment of minors: 6 counts
Breaking and entering: 2 counts
False inprisonment: 1 count
Resisting arrest: 3 counts
The plea is as follows:
3 years probation, 6 months weekly check in, and monthly after that, manditory drug and mental treatment, and manditory use of his proper meds.


This was fine with us, but the judge was on the verge of over ruling it. But, because my brother was honest in the fact that he did what he was charged with, the judge allowed it. My brother's lawyer was crazy, and was telling the judge that he did not believe my brother was guilty. He kept on; the judge asked him if he would like to put my brother on a jury trial, in which his admiting he was guilty would be taken in account, and my brother and uncle were grabing him and telling him to be quiet. So my question is.......


How would you have handle this situation? The same or differently? and please explain [img]smile.gif[/img]


Oh and ps; now that my brother is clean and sober, he is in church. We are now talking again, and he sees the kids under supervision. He loves them to no end; he says the reason he went in in the first place was because the baby was screaming and crying, and the girl was not taking care of her. After careful remembering of the night, I find that I belive him to a degree. There was a baby bottle, full, sitting on the sink; and when we changed her diaper, she was soaked and leaking. So yes, I do belive in his mind; at the time he thought he was doing was right.

Again, no offense Stormy. And for the record, I do not claim my beta-ing is perfect in the slightest.

[ 06-19-2003, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: Kaltia ]