My first shift as a police officer was during a heat wave in downtown Hamilton. It appeared to be a typical Friday night with everyone flooding the streets. The nerves of this rookie were barely controllable.
Const. Khoa Hoang
We were called to a disturbance at a Barton Street address, later classified as one of Canada’s roughest streets. As we stood on the second-floor hallway, only three doors could be counted. My coach officer and I stood puzzled searching for mysterious apartment No. 4.
In the centre of the hall was a window which I jokingly said, “Looks like number four to me!” We climbed out onto a rooftop and immediately noticed footprints that led to a fire escape down the back side of the building. There was a large square garbage container that smelled of cooked garbage from the afternoon sun, a covered-up window, and a thin old wooden door with the “#4” written in black marker.
I could hear a woman screaming from inside the unit. As we approached the door, a woman’s head came through the window next to me, shattering pieces of glass onto the two of us. My coach officer didn’t hesitate to kick in the door and it took the two of us moments to get the suspect under control.
Within minutes of us arriving, the small dark and narrow alleyway was lit with roof lights from emergency vehicles. Paramedics, firefighters and police officers arrived to help where they could. It was the end of a relationship and the beginning of a difficult journey breaking a cycle of violence.
I was walking the handcuffed man back to my cruiser when he turned to me and said, “She left food out!” It almost seemed like a bad after-school program on domestic violence. But that was it – simple really. That was all it took for this senseless crime to occur.
Men are responsible for an overwhelming 90 per cent of domestic violence and it’s believed that more than one-third of domestic violence incidences are never reported to police. Physical and sexual abuse cost Canadians more than $4 billion a year when you factor in loss of work, the criminal justice system, health care and social services. The cost of failing to effectively raise boys to end violence against women is $4 billion.
For those reasons and so many more, I was extremely honoured to have been invited to be a member of the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, one of the few males in this position. The coalition works to unite resources from across our city in hopes of ending violence against women forever. Forever? A bit ambitious if you ask me, but I like people who shoot for the moon if it means failure leaves you among the stars.
You can tell a lot about a culture by how they treat their women.
It’s been eight years since that first shift, and my priorities have been shaped by events that alter life’s destiny.
May has been designated as sexual assault awareness month by the City of Ottawa, traditionally followed by peak periods of assaults during warm summer months. With so much attention on inequity and violence against women, we have a lot of work ahead of us.
For more information, visit octevaw-cocvff.ca.