Both weapons used in the crime and found on him disappeared from the evidence locker before trial. The prosecution did not call any compelling witness, and he was released after less than a year and given parole. He has since been spotted at least once trying to get into mother-in-law’s current neighborhood.

We don’t trust the police or the legal system anymore.

My husband and his mother are white, and yet even with that privilege they were put through the hell outlined above. I can’t imagine the pain of those directly abused by the authorities, but I can grieve for them and for the lives lost and destroyed, like the little girl and her family in Detroit. Maybe some people put on the badge because they want to help, but more often the police system is used as an excuse for power-hungry thugs to hide from any responsibility.

Violent offenders should be housed with other violent offenders and isolated from each other if the state is worried about people hurting each other. Offering up vulnerable women to deranged men is not only unconscionable, but criminal.

I won’t pretend that I am more knowledgeable than ignorant about about rape culture but I do think this question doesn’t always have to be victim blaming. The way I look at it is, if I were raped, I would call the cops. It would be hard. I may have to deal with a lot of shit from police, lawyers, judges, who knows who else. It may not do a damned thing but I’m a big proponent of doing what you can even if what you can do isn’t much. I like to feel like I’m doing something. Maybe when people ask that question, they sometimes just mean “are you taking care of yourself now?”

The inmates are running that asylum, all right.