Victim of abuse says police
made her feel like a suspect
PHILIPSBURG--She thought getting a broken nose from her boyfriend was the worst that could happen, but after filing a complaint with police, American Cynthia Darby now feels more like a suspect than the victim of domestic violence.
She told The Daily Herald that a police detective had told her he could lose his job if he arrested the man who had landed her in the hospital and police station with a bloody nose, a cut between the eyes and a swollen neck before reporting the matter to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Darby said she finally understood the plight of other battered women whose problems were swept under the carpet while they were consoled with words like “we will call you back.”
What she found even more disturbing, according to her, was the fact that the police never even asked for a description of her abuser, but told her: “Call us when you see him and we will come pick him up.”
She said a call to the Women’s Desk had not proven fruitful either, as that office also had promised to call her back. “I feel scared and I have to look over my shoulder. I can’t go home because he (her abuser) has the keys to my house and he has my money. Friends from work had to put me up on their couches while I have an apartment,” said the tearful Darby.
Darby and her estranged lover had been quarrelling for months. When they went to a local bar on Saturday night, their disagreement escalated into a nightmare for her after she told him she had had enough of his drinking and had decided to break up with him. He threw a temper tantrum.
She claims he head-butted her on the nose and broke it. “He almost knocked me completely out and then he grabbed me by the neck and dragged me outside and kept dragging me and saying he would kill me.”
She was rescued by some persons who had rushed to her aid, but by then the damage had already been done. Some friends later took her to St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) after which she reported the matter to the Philipsburg police station, where she found the service very poor.
She is scheduled to return to the doctor on Thursday for further treatment of her broken nose.
Meanwhile, she says she fears for her life and wonders why she has to be made to feel like the guilty party in this entire episode while the man who beat her is left to roam the streets of St. Maarten untouched.
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