My friend Lou Barrett's long career as a police officer ended when his heart sent him a message that it was time for him to retire. He survived the malfunction of his principal organ but took its advice and turned in his badge. We often meet for breakfast and Lou's experiences as a law officer always have relevance to the current events of the day.
Such as domestic violence. Lou contributes time now supporting a shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse and his interest in that issue evolved from his years of dealing with it on his job.
Early in his career in California perpetrators of domestic abuse could not be prosecuted without the cooperation of the spousal victim and in a large percentage of the cases, he says, the victim would not agree to testify, either from fear of future abuse or from a belief that the abuser was remorseful and would change.
Lou said it was not unusual for an officer to get hit on the head with a frying pan when trying to arrest an abusive spouse. Many women, he says, are convinced they can change the behavior of a violent spouse.
Yeah, right.
German anthropologist Hinrich von Stuben in 1903 reported in a leading scientific journal in Berlin, the results of his 12-year study of butterflies and their relation to human female behavior. His study found that in a flight of 10,000 Monarchs, 7,468 of them will flit around and land on beautiful flowers while 2,532 of them will flit around the beautiful flowers and then land on a cow pie.
