The girl was crying before anyone even asked her a question. Tears just started coming out of her eyes. She began to cry. The crying started before anyone asked the girl a question. It was really sad to see the girl, like that.
It was not quiet. It was not controlled. The sound of the womans crying came out in bursts that echoed through the courtroom. This made the people sitting there feel really uncomfortable. They shifted around in their seats. The woman was standing at the defense table. Her hands were. Her face was wet from crying. She was having a hard time breathing because she was sobbing much. The womans crying was really loud. It sounded broken. The courtroom was a place and her crying made it feel strange. The woman, at the defense table was struggling to calm down.
She was not crying to be heard.
The woman was really upset because the woman had gotten to the end of the story. The story had finally come to an end. That is why the woman was crying.
Please give me bail she said, her voice was shaking really badly so that some of the words were hardly coming out. My child is really sick.
The courtroom went totally silent. Everything, in the courtroom just stopped. It was like nobody was even breathing. The courtroom was still.
Court cases go fast. Judges listen to people making excuses all the time every day.. This time it was different. This did not sound like something the person had practiced beforehand. It did not sound like a plan to get out of something. The court case sounded like the person was really desperate. It sounded like the person was telling the truth and could not fake it. Court cases can be tricky. This one seemed real. The person in the court case was being honest, about their situation.
She wiped her face with her sleeve. Her eyes were really red. Her hair was pulled back. It looked like she did it in a hurry. It seemed like she had not slept well in days. Her hair and face and everything, about her looked like she was very tired. She just looked like she had been having a tough time and she had not slept properly.
The woman said something that surprised me. “My husband beats me ” she said all a sudden. The words just came out of her mouth fast like she had been keeping them inside for a very long time. Then she said “Please, please”. That was it.
This was not where the hearing was supposed to go. The hearing was supposed to be about something but it took a different turn. The people who were, at the hearing were surprised by what happened. The hearing is what did not go as planned.
Her life was pretty normal, until a months ago. She got married when she was young. She had one kid. They lived in a house that they did not own. The people who lived near her thought she had a family. Her family thought she was a woman who did what she was supposed to do without complaining. Her life looked ordinary from the outside.
What nobody saw was what went on behind those doors. The things that happened behind doors were not seen by anyone. Behind doors is where the real things happened that nobody saw.
The violence did not start at once. The violence never does. It started with people shouting at each other. Then it got worse. There were slaps. These slaps were explained away as being angry. Then there were nights when she had to sleep with her child in her arms counting each breath and hoping that the door, to her room would not open again. The violence was getting worse. She was scared.
The woman tried to leave. The woman was pulled back. This really scared the woman. The woman did not like being dragged like that. The woman just wanted to get out of there. The woman was not able to.
The woman tried to say something. Someone stopped her from talking. She was not allowed to speak.
When her child got sick everything just fell apart. Her child was really sick. That is when everything collapsed for her. The fact that her child was sick made her world crumble down. Her child getting sick was the reason why everything collapsed.
The illness started out really small. It began with a fever. Then the child felt weak. The mom did not take the child to see doctors. The husband was, in charge of the money. He decided when the child should go see a doctor, not the mom.
As time went by the child got a lot worse. The child would cry through the night. The child was losing weight. The child was getting weaker and weaker. The illness was getting worse and worse.
The woman asked for help at her home. The woman did not get the help she needed at her home.
The woman got something. That was blame. She received blame for what happened. The woman did not get anything she got blame.
She was really scared. She made a decision that got her into a lot of trouble. This decision was not made because she wanted to do something it was just that she was really panicked. So she left the place. She tried to get some help. She did things that were against the rules. She did not really know what those rules meant.. Because of this the police arrested her before they even asked her why she had run away, from the place. She was. Taken to jail.
Now she stood in court called a person while the real threat was still out there the person who was really dangerous. She was the one, in court. The real danger was outside, not her.
The woman said “my child needs help” and she started crying louder. Her voice was shaking badly. She just wanted her child to be safe.
People, in the gallery shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Some of them looked down at the floor. Others stared directly at her. The bail hearing was not simple anymore. The womans life was falling apart in front of everyone.
The judge had not said a word yet. The judge was still quiet.
When the judges voice finally came it was not angry. The judges voice was not sympathetic either. The judges voice was sharp. It was focused and it was urgent.
The judge said “Officer”.
The woman just stood there she was still. She had no idea what was going to happen next.
“Bring the husband in immediately.”
The room finally did something this time. The room. It was really something to see. What happened was that the room reacted.
The judge just kept going. “And the child needs to be kept safe ” the judge said. The judge wanted to make sure the child is protected.
Those words changed everything. Those words really had an impact, on me. I mean the words that were spoken they changed everything that I thought I knew. The words that were said they were very powerful. They changed everything.
This is not about bail anymore. This is about helping people who need it. Sometimes the person in handcuffs is not the problem. The real issue is something in the room. This is, about seeing that the person standing in handcuffs is not always the dangerous one.
The woman just fell apart crying hard now. This was not because she was scared. Because she finally felt a little better. For the time, in a long time someone actually listened to the woman. Someone finally said the things the woman had been trying to say. Could not get anyone to hear. The woman had been trying to get someone to listen to her for long.
Protection.
For a time she was just trying to get by. She made choices based on what would be the thing to do that day. The woman stayed in this situation because she thought it would be worse if she left. She did not say anything because she felt like it would not make a difference. The woman remained silent. The situation, with the woman just continued like this.
The courtroom had seen many people cry before.. This crying was different. It was not about being punished. It was about a child who was really sick. Nobody did anything to help the child. It was about a woman who was beaten by someone. She was too scared to say anything. It was, about how marriage can hide the fact that someone is being abused and the systems that are supposed to help the woman and the child just do not notice the abuse of the woman and the child.
The decision, on the bail will be made on. The bail decision is something that will be figured out at a time.
Something important has just come up right now. This thing is more urgent, than everything that was going on. Now this urgent thing has happened.
The judge changed things around. He stopped looking at all the paperwork. Started looking at the people. The judge stopped worrying much about the rules and started thinking about safety. The judge really wanted to focus on the people and their safety.
Outside the courtroom the police officers moved fast. People were using their phones. Instructions were being given to them. The system, which is usually very slow was suddenly working quickly. The system was now moving because something had happened to make it work faster.
The woman was still sitting inside. Her head was down. Tears were falling from her eyes. She was not asking for anything anymore. She was not saying please anymore. The woman was just waiting now. She was very tired and very hurt. People could see her now. The woman was not invisible like she was before.
This was not a victory.
Things did not work out fairly. Justice was not served in an tidy way. The whole thing was just not right. Justice was supposed to be served but it was not.
It was a pause. A chance.
The child needs to be seen. The child has to be noticed by people. This is important, for the child.
We need to recognize the violence that is happening. The violence has to be acknowledged. People should know about the violence. The violence is something that has to be talked about. We have to acknowledge the violence.
For the truth to finally interrupt procedure.
Courtrooms do not often feel like a place where people can be themselves. They are built on rules and schedules not feelings.. Sometimes a case comes along that makes the courtroom feel more real. It makes people remember why we have laws in the place. The law is not, about punishing people who do something wrong.
We need to help people who’re not able to help themselves. This is because some people are not strong enough to protect themselves so we have to do it for them to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
On that day a woman felt a lot of pain. This pain did something that all the years of being quiet and hurting could not do. It came out in sobs and moments of silence. The womans pain was really strong, on that day.
It made the system listen.