On Tuesday, I linked you to a case of police brutality. This morning I ran across something far worse. The murder of Natasha Hall.
The 17-year-old was involved in an abusive relationship with a guy a couple years older than her. But this wasn’t a case of a young woman too intimidated to ask for help. Her and her family had repeatedly begged police to intervene. Unfortunately, these police assumed it was normal teen relationship drama, despite the violence of the incidents involved.
One problem as Feministing rightly points out, is that violence against women is taken less seriously. But they stop short before reaching the more wide ranging problem on display in this completely preventable tragedy.
Law enforcement seems to rank violence in a ridiculous hierarchy. Violence involving two adult strangers is at the top and police almost always respond to it. Violence within an adult relationship draws a milder response from police who far too often chalk it up as a “domestic disturbance.” Violence between minors draws an even less impressive response and is often left to the parents of the involved kids. So you can imagine where violence between minors who are involved in a relationship falls.
This is the most backward thing I can imagine. It absolutely turns on its head the premise that law enforcement should protect the most vulnerable first. Aren’t minors more vulnerable than adults? Aren’t minor girls dating older guys even more vulnerable still?
Imagine for a moment that police had taken Natasha Hall’s pleas seriously. Imagine that an officer had assured her of that the last time she called them. If that were the case, then on the day that her killer showed up on her front lawn ranting and raving, maybe Natasha wouldn’t have been worried about a police officer’s threat to “arrest them both” if she called again. Maybe Natasha would have called 9-1-1 instead of going outside, and maybe, just maybe, she would still be alive today.
